Steve Kaliski Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre and Writing Studies

I am a theatre director, playwright and educator. A Charlotte native and proud alum of Davidson College, I have worked professionally in New York City since 2007. I am thrilled to return to the Davidson Theatre Department, which was instrumental in inspiring and shaping my creative career. I look forward to providing the same committed mentorship to students across the liberal arts curriculum.

In New York, I served as a Broadway Resident Director for Tony Award winner Jack O'Brien and also assisted on the acclaimed Off Broadway staging of Three Sisters starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and the Broadway revival of Evita starring Ricky Martin. In 2014 I co-founded the independent theatre company Adjusted Realists, which I continue to lead as an Artistic Director. For Adjusted Realists, I've directed Nicky Silver's AIDS tragicomedy Pterodactyls and Eliza Bent's The Beyonc?, and I've written the dystopian comedy Gluten! and the Euripides riff The Briefly Dead for productions at the Off Broadway hub 59E59 Theaters.

My other produced plays include His Minute Hand and West Lethargy, which was staged at the New York and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals and was published in Plays and Playwrights 2011. Freelance directing credits include In the Next Room or the vibrator play and A Midsummer Night's Dream for the Yale Dramatic Association and Dead Shot Mary for The Bridge. I have taught theatre and communications at Fordham University, LIU Post, and Brooklyn College, where I specialized in the plays of Anton Chekhov.

As a teacher, I am passionate about applying theatre to broader societal contexts. I connect the stage's ancient celebration of empathy, storytelling and collaboration to sought-after business skills today, and I promote theatre as one of our most democratic and relevant civic forums.