Bill Largess

Bio

Bill Largess has been a theatre artist in the Washington area for over 40 years. He is a founding member of The Washington Stage Guild, a professional theatre in downtown DC and has been artistic director since 2008. Along with directing works by George Bernard Shaw, T.S. Eliot, Beaumarchais, and Ferenc Molnar among others, he appeared in many roles for the Guild - most of the company’s Shaw offerings, as loquacious characters ranging from Captain Bluntschli in Arms and The Man to the He-Ancient in Back to Methusaleh, and from Jack Tanner/ Don Juan in Man & Superman to the waiter William in You Never Can Tell. Other Stage Guild roles include Lord Goring in Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband, the title roles in The Guardsman and The Alchemist, and his own one-man adaptation of Dante’s Inferno. He has also acted or directed for many other companies in the Washington/Baltimore region, besides work at The Manhattan Theatre Club, The LaJolla Playhouse, The Provincetown Playhouse, and Allenberry Playhouse. Besides Inferno, he translated and adapted Marivaux' The Game of Love and Chance in collaboration with Laura Giannarelli for the Stage Guild's 1995 production, and has scripted a number of works for the National Portrait Gallery and Rep Stage's Summer Actors' Institute. A lifelong Washingtonian, and an alumnus of Catholic University, he has taught there, at Howard Community College, and since 2008, at George Washington University, where he has directed One Flea Spare, Blithe Spirit, Learning Curves, An Evening of Beckett, and Twelfth Night.

Current Outside Position

• Dramaturgy for Summerland by Arlitia Jones at Washington Stage Guild
• Dramaturgy for and acting in All Save One by Greg Jones Ellis at Washington Stage Guild
• Directing Gulf View Drive by Arlene Hutton at Washington Stage Guild
• Dramaturgy for Resolving Hedda by Jon Klein at Washington Stage Guild

Distinctions

Plays produced:

The Game of Love and Chance by Marivaux, translated and adapted with Laura Giannarelli
Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, adapted from Oscar Wilde
Inferno, adapted from Dante
A Child’s Christmas in Wales and Other Stories, adapted from several authors
Helen Hayes Award, five-time nominee Theatre Lobby/Mary Goldwater Award, two-time recipient DC Commission on The Arts and Humanities Individual Artist Fellowship, three-time recipient Columbia Pictures Young Screenwriters Program, nominee

Education

BA in Drama, The Catholic University of America

Professional Organizations

Actors’ Equity Association
Washington/Baltimore Liaison Committee, Actors’ Equity Association, co-chair emeritus
Washington Area Performing Arts Video Archive. (WAPAVA), board of directors