Kenneth Cavander’s career in the U.S. and the U.K. spans theatre, television
(dramatic and documentary), and film.
Film,Television, Radio - U.K.
Staff
Assistant to film director Carol Reed
Story Department of The Rank Organization, Pinewood Studios
Writer The Man from Interpol, ITC, Pinewood Studios
Story Editor, Eyeline Films, London
Bernard Braden Beat (late night satirical review) BBC TV
Film,Television, Radio - U.K.
Drama
The Impersonator
Co-writer, THE IMPERSONATOR, Independent feature. One of 15 films selected by Steve Chibnall and Brian McFarlane in their survey of British B films, as among the most meritorious of the B films made in Britain Critics Penelope Gilliatt and Dilys Powell also praised it at the time of its release.
Girl on Approval
Co-writer, Independent feature
Beyond Narnia
BBC-1/Hallmark Channel (U.S.) Dramatic reconstruction of the struggle of C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia, to reconcile the conflicting claims of divine and earthly love. Read More »
Florence Nightingale
BBC-1 2008 Rebellious genius, aristocrat, and early feminist Florence Nightingale defied
convention and the combined power of the British government to revolutionize the
practice of medicine. BAFTA nominee.
Nom de Plume
BBC TV Episode, 30-min.
Women of Troy
BBC TV (ad. play by Euripides) Read More »
Seven Steps to the Moon
GRANADA TV Episode, 60-min.
The Machine Stops
BBC TV Episode, Out of the Unknown, included in BFI's 2014 reissue of the classic
science fiction series. (ad. E.M.Forster)
Mr. Slim
Original Screenplay (Drummond Enterprises)
Fog Warning
BBC TV Original Drama for television
The New Men (ad. C.P.Snow)
GRANADA TV
Episodic:
The Man in Room 17 — Episodes GRANADA TV
The Catacombs,
Vendetta
It's Better to Know ABC TV
For King and Country (series) - Play of the Week ITV
Out There (ad.)
Philoctetes
BBC TV (tr. Play by Sophocles)
with Commentary by Bernard Williams, Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford
BBC RADIO
Bacchae (tr. Play by Euripides)
Hippolytus (tr. Play by Euripides)
BBC SCHOOL RADIO
THE ODYSSEY
THE ILIAD
THE LEGEND OF ROLAND
THE STORY OF SIEGFRIED
THE STORY OF ORPHEUS
Theatre - U.K.
59 Theatre Co
Assistant to the Producer
Royal Court Theatre
Assistant Director, Platonov, by Chekhov, starring Rex Harrison (George Devine, Director)
RSC — Stratford-upon-Avon
Co-Director workshop on Greek drama and civilization (John Barton, Supervising Director)Read More »
RSC — Aldwych Theatre, London
The Greeks
(Translation and adaptation with John Barton) 3-evening series of plays for London’s Royal Shakespeare
Company based on 10 classic Greek dramas.
Mermaid Theatre
Bacchae by Euripides.
Oedipus the King & Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles
Film and Television — U.S.
Drama
A Special Friendship CBS
True story of a white Southern slave-owner and her black servant who conspired to spy on Confederate
forces on behalf of the Union during the Civil War.
Called to Africa Faith and Values Media
Co-writer, Independent feature
Guests of the Nation PBS
(Ad. Frank O’Connor) A tragic-comic story of two English prisoners captured by the rebels during the
Irish ‘Troubles’
Harvest VUSN Cable
(Ad. Richard Selzer) A recently widowed woman seeks out the man who carries the heart transplanted
from her deceased husband.
Hiroshima Maiden PBS
Japanese girl, scarred by exposure to atomic radiation, finds acceptance and a measure of healing in the
United States.
Jenny's Song Group W/WBZ
Consoled by a wise friend of her late father, a teenager learns how to cope with the loss of a parent
through reliving his favorite hobby, sailing.
Mourning Becomes Electra
PBS Great Performances — 5-part series adapted for television from Eugene O’Neill’s epic saga of a New
England family torn apart by a thirst for vengeance.
Taking Care of Terrific PBS
Boston teenager learns from a black saxophonist and a bag lady how to be comfortable with those who
are different and, just as important, with herself.
The File on Jill Hatch PBS-BBC Co-production.
3-part series, starring Joe Morton and Gloria Foster, tracing the tumultuous history of an interracial marriage between an African-American G.I. and a white English girl through two generations after WW2.
The Littlest Victims CBS
True story of the doctor who proved for the first time that unborn children could carry the HIV/AIDS virus.
Three by Shaw PBS
Channel Thirteen, NY Adaptations of three of Irwin Shaw’s classic tales, The Girls in the Their Summer Dresses
The Man Who Married a French Wife, and The Monument.
Wagner PBS
Channel Thirteen, NY (Producer/Narration) The life and loves of the revolutionary composer, starring
Richard Burton as Wagner, and tracing the heady years when he was creating his magnum opus, The Ring of Nibelungen
Film and Television — U.S.
Documentary
Beyond Hate
PBS Special with Bill Moyers, exploring the roots of hatred, individual and collective, and how to combat
it. With Elie Wiesel. Peabody Award
Liberty — Episode 7 — The Constitutional Convention
The writing of the U.S. Constitution told through letters and eyewitness accounts from the participants,
famous and unknown, of the time.
Storming the Citadel,
PBS American Masters program featuring the work of Robert Motherwell as it traced the rise of the
revolutionary art movement, Abstract Expressionism.
The Question of God (Sigmund Freud and C.S.Lewis)
(Senior Consultant) The conflict between of faith and skepticism, as it was played out in the works of two
thinkers with diametrically opposed views.
The Dinosaur Series
(WHYY Philadelphia)
Amistad
(Producer) A group of young people relive the experiences of the original crew of the 19th century
schooner Amistad, whose cargo of slaves rebelled and achieved freedom with the help of John Quincy Adams.
Producer/Consultant
A Passion for the Possible (PBS Pledge Week Special), Retreat Video (U.S. House of Representatives),
The Democracy Minutes (Walter Cronkite), The Shakespeare Hour (Walter Matthau introduces a BBC
series of productions of the Shakespeare canon)
Film and Television — U.S.
Staff
Director, Script Development, Channel Thirteen, New York 1978-1982.
In addition to programs he scripted, Kenneth Cavander was responsible for developing teleplays by John
Cheever; A.R. Gurney; Reynolds Price; Ann Beattie; Louis Auchincloss
Script Editor, American Playhouse, PBS (inaugural season)
Theatre — U.S.
Plays
Hawthorne Country
(with Lou Berger) Themes from stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne woven into a 2-act play that combines a
tragic love story with scenes of comic fantasy. Williamstown Theatre Festival Production directed by the author.
Agamemnon and his Daughters
The story of the great general and the bloody aftermath of his sacrifice of his daughter for the sake of an
ill-conceived war, leading in the end to a miraculous resolution, re-conceived for a post 9/11 audience.
Arena Stage, Washington, D.C.
The Legend of Oedipus
2-evening epic drama that combines all the parts of the famous myth scattered among the ancient
traditions into a seamless narrative, linked by satiric commentary from watching Olympians.
Williamstown Theatre Festival.
Simple Gifts
A love story set in the strange and enigmatic world of the Shakers, who combined austere discipline with
haunting songs and wild flights of imagination as they communed with the Saints and their founding
genius, Mother Ann. The Open Eye, New York, directed by the author.
The Poor of New York
Adaptation of Dion Boucicault’s hit melodrama, inspired by the villainy of Wall Street robber barons.
Alice in Wonderland
‘Translator’ for director Andre Gregory’s groundbreaking physicalization of Lewis Carroll’s masterpiece.
Long-running production played in New York for several years.
Andersen, Dream Lover
An evening with Hans Christian Andersen — he goes through a spiritual crisis as a jealous lover while
being haunted by some of his key fairy tales, which crowd his imagination and take the stage.
Arthurian Dreamscapes
(Electronic score by Richard Peaslee). Stories of mystery and danger from Malory’s Arthurian Cycle
retold as variations on the Hero’s Quest. Williamstown Theatre Festival Production directed by the
author. Also, St Clement Theatre, New York.
3 ONE-ACT COMEDIES
Omaha
A New York slacker attempts to make a clean break with his current girlfriend. He can’t.
Checking Out
Two potential suicides become locked in an absurd argument about which of them is more deserving of pity.
The Taste of Throb
When a burnt-out journalist discovers he has the ability to eat his words - literally- strange and wonderful consequences ensue.
Paradise Lost
The central story of Milton’s epic reimagined as a cosmic political melodrama of power and raw ambition,
using only lines from Milton’s poem... Williamstown Theatre Festival Production directed by the author.
Story Theatre — Dracula, Fly Paper, Saint Julian, In the Beginning
Classic tales from Bram Stoker, Dashiell Hammett, Gustave Flaubert, and the Bible, retold in Story
Theatre style, as originated by Paul Sills. The John Drew Theatre, East Hampton, and Yale Repertory
Theatre, directed by Larry Arrick.
The Hoffman Project
Workshop performance of stories by 19th Century fantasy author E.T.A. Hoffman, reinvented for a
contemporary audience. Directed by Mark Lamos for the Hartford Stage Company.
Theatre — U.S.
Musicals
Boccaccio
(music by Richard Peaslee) First seen at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, based on tales from
Boccaccio’s Decameron, directed by the author, and subsequently produced at several regional theatres
and on Broadway.
Olympian Games
(with Barbara Damashek, music by Damashek) based on stories from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, one of the
Yale Repertory Theatre’s most successful productions and revived numerous times at other regional
theatres. Directed by Larry Arrick.
Jelly Roll Morton — Development Workshop
Collaboration with star Gregory Hines and Director Timothy Mayer on a musical inspired by the life of
Jazz great ‘Jelly Roll’ Morton. [Workshopped only.] Later produced on Broadway in a new version
directed by George Wolffe.
Theatre — U.S.
Family Audiences
Creation Myths
Traditional legends of the origins of life, music, and the universe itself. Long Wharf Theatre, New Haven.
Directed by the author.
Jason and the Argonauts
(Music by Barbara Damashek) 1-act musical telling the story of the romantic adventures of Jason and
Medea, the sorceress who become his wife. Long Wharf Theatre, New Haven. Directed by the author.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1-act opera)
(composer — Richard Peaslee) Sensuous and mysterious, filled with adventure and sorcery, this Arthurian
legend mixes high drama, romance, and danger.
The Story of Aesop
(a.k.a. The Life of Aesop, Dramatic Publishing) Multiple award-winning play combining the search for
freedom of the slave known as ‘Aesop’ with selected fables that resonate with his struggle.
The Children’s Crusade
(music by Richard Peaslee) Based on a true story. First produced in New York for the First All Children’s
Theatre, The Children’s Crusade broke new ground in the genre of theatre for Family Audiences.
Tanglewood Tales
(music by Richard Peaslee) Nathaniel Hawthorne’s re-telling of Greek myths set to music.
Theatre — Translations
Sophocles
Oedipus the King
Oedipus at Colonus
Philoctetes
Euripides
Bacchae
Iphigeneia at Aulis
Women of Troy
Hippolytus
Ibsen
Brand
Hedda Gabler
Calderon
Life is a Dream
Moliere
Don Juan
Herodotos Last 3 Books of ‘The Histories’
The Struggle for Greece — Folio Society
Timon of Athens and The Tempest
Two transcriptions of plays by William Shakespeare. Both were successfully produced at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in 2014 and 2017 respectively, directed by Geoffrey Sherman, these scripts use Shakespeare’s original texts along with carefully modulated versions of passages that would otherwise be unintelligible to contemporary audiences. Read More »
The Tempest
As produced at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, 2017
PRINT JOURNALISM
Staff — U.K.
The London Times
Home News Room — Reporter
Sight and Sound
Columnist, Reviewer
PRINT JOURNALISM — U.S.
Articles
The New York Times
Reunion, Prague
Loco Spotting
Harpers Magazine
Psychenauts
Secrets
The Saturday Review
Plaka
Horizon Magazine
Dionysian Frenzy
Astarte
Gurdjieff
Hellenism
Hercules Lives
A Classical Crime Passionel
Ovid in Exile
Love is the Law
American Theatre
Imagining the Greeks
Joseph Campbell
Dramatists Guild Quarterly
Pursuing Sir Gawain
Crossing the Line
New Haven Register — articles, reviews
The Letters of G.B.S;Henry Luce
Santo Loquasto
Soaps
Supermarket of the Arts
Swanberg
Yale Alumni Magazine
The New Look of the Classics Department
Yale New Journal
Greek Drama
Cricket
The Sun's Musicians
Story
TEACHING — U.S.
Yale University
Yale School of Drama
Yale University, College Seminars
Bennington College
Sarah Lawrence College
Temple University
National Theatre Institute
(O'Neill Theatre Center)
Assistant Professor, Classics Department
Courses in directing and classical drama
Branford College
Silliman College
Visiting Instructor, Ensemble Theatre,
Writing for Television
Visiting Instructor, Ensemble Theatre, Acting
Visiting Instructor, Ensemble Theatre
Ensemble Theatre