David Anderson, actor, director, playwright and poet, was born in Beloit, Wisconsin, USA. In 1991 he received a Bachelor’s degree in writing from Lakeland College. He taught English in Weimar, Germany, for three years before completing a post-graduate degree in Waldorf Education at Emerson College, Forest Row, England. He studied Speech and Drama at Threshold Theater in Christchurch, New Zealand, and has performed throughout North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. An adaptation for the stage of his 45-part poem “Walking the dog” led to the founding of Walking the dog Theater in 1997.

In 2001 David Anderson and John McManus inaugurated Shakespeare Alive!, a yearlong course for youth in the art of acting. The college-accredited course completed its third year of training in 2004.

David recently has played Ferdinand in The Tempest, Jack Loring in Sam Hall’s new play War Games, which premiered in April 2005, Leonce in Leonce and Lena (which he translated), the farmer in The Gold in the Ground, and performed opposite Fern Sloan in For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again. He played Macbeth in Macbeth in 2003, Hamlet in Hamlet in 2001-2, Nippers in Bartleby, the Scrivener with the Actors’ Ensemble in 2003, and has directed The Idiot, The Madwoman of Chaillot, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Measure for Measure, As You Like It, The Winter’s Tale, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Mouse That Roared, and The Snowgoose. In 2003 his poetry was published in the anthology A Memory of New Hunger. He is executive director of Walking the dog Theater.