Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia
McAnuff, Des
Award-winning director/playwright born in Princeton, Illinois in 1952 and raised in Guelph and Scarborough, Ontario .
Although he is now celebrated for his Broadway productions (Big River, Tommy, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying), Mr. McAnuff began his career in the Alternative and Experimental Theatre of Toronto. In 1973, at 21, he wrote Leave it to Beaver is Dead which was staged at Hart House Theatre . He had a large, underground following for his productions (Urbania, A Lime in the Morning, The Bacchae). He was not a favourite of the mainstream press and after his production of Faustus ( Theatre Passe Muraille , 1976) got tepid critical reaction he departed for New York.
There he worked with Joe Papp, and then moved to San Diego in 1982 to take over (and launch into national celebrity with the musical Big River) the La Jolla Playhouse.
He has returned occasionally to Canada including in 1979 where he worked at the playwrights colony of Banff Centre for The Arts with emerging playwrights including Gaëtan Charlebois , Margaret Hollingsworth and Gordon Pengilly , in 1980 when he mounted a production at Toronto Arts Productions, in 1983 when he directed Shakespeare 's Macbeth at the Stratford Festival and, of course, for the Canadian production of Tommy and, How To Succeed...
He has now turned to film. He is directing the movie version Rocky and Bullwinkle starring Robert De Niro.
He has said of working in Canada, "When the time comes that there is a need for a strong and forceful theatre here, and an international one, then I would love to work here again."
Mr. McAnuff now also directs movies.
Last updated 2009-04-24
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