page_title: David Rotenberg (author)
section_title: Acting teacher and international director (1987- )
hierarchical_section_title: David Rotenberg (author) / Career / Acting teacher and international director (1987- )
caption_attribution_description: English: Tatiana Maslany speaking at the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con International in San Diego, California.
context_page_description: David Charles Rotenberg, usually known as David Rotenberg, is a Canadian author and professor emeritus of theatre studies at York University, where he taught graduate students for over 25 years, as well at the Professional Actors Lab in Toronto, which he founded as the artistic director. David Rotenberg has been referred to as one of Canada's "most notable acting teachers and coaches," and may be the nation's best known master acting teacher. During the formative part of his career, he was a theatre director in New York City and staged two Broadway shows, returning to Toronto in 1987. In 1994, he directed the first Canadian play to be staged in the People's Republic of China, which inspired his career as a novelist, beginning with the five Zhong Fong mysteries set in modern Shanghai as well as the historical fiction novel Shanghai. After writing a series of speculative thrillers set in The Junction, Toronto, He began a science fiction series in 2017.
context_section_description: Rotenberg made the move back to Toronto in 1987, where he began to teach graduate students. He had expected also to resume his directing career in his hometown, but he got a rude awakening, recalling: "I was effectively shunned," and was told to forget directing in Canada; there was no directing work, and he did not know why: "Perhaps if I'd gone to, let's say, Czechoslovakia to work, I'd have come home hailed as a hero. But that Broadway stint seemed to rankle those who were handing out directing jobs here."
  I was a professional theatre director ... with two Broadway shows to my credit, dozens of regional theatre credits and I ran a major American regional theatre so it was a bit of shock to me when I returned to Canada, where I'd been born and raised, to find that the Canadian theatre community wanted nothing to do with me. Apparently I was a traitor. If I had spent twenty minutes directing in Eastern Europe rather than twenty years directing in America I believe I would have been welcomed back by the Canadian theatre with open arms.
  Rotenberg continued occasionally to direct plays and television in Canada and abroad. In 1994, he received a call asking if he would be interested in directing a play to be produced in Shanghai, in Mandarin. Rotenberg imagined they wanted Shakespeare or a modern master, but it turned out to be Canadian George Ryga's The Ecstasy of Rita Joe: "Apparently, Ryga's play was the only Canadian play they had at hand in translation ... They wanted a Canadian director with varied skills and solid street creds, and someone who could work with students." Rotenberg accepted the engagement to put on the production at the Shanghai Theatre Academy, the first Canadian play to be produced in translation in China with a Chinese cast and creative team. In 2012, Rotenberg recalled that on arrival, he was told "You must remember that you can always be replaced". The Ecstasy of Rita Joe is a contemporary story about a young First Nation woman who leaves the reserve for the big city, but the subject matter was not understood by the Chinese: "They didn't comprehend it at all ... When the set designs arrived, there were Indians with head dresses and war paint." Despite such cultural differences and working in a completely foreign language, the production was nevertheless a "limited success."
caption: Tatiana Maslany
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