Daniel Elihu Kramer

Daniel Elihu Kramer teaches directing and acting—as well as courses cross-listed with Film and Media Studies and the first year seminar Screening Shakespeare. From 2015-2022 he served as Producing Artistic Director of Chester Theatre Company, where his directing credits include The Aliens (Berkshire Theatre Award for Best Ensemble), Every Brilliant Thing (Berkshire Theatre Award for Best New Play), The Night Alive, Circle Mirror Transformation, Tiny Beautiful Things, Sister Play, Blink, The Amish Project, Tryst and The Turn of the Screw. His work at Chester Theatre Company was the subject of a New Yorker profile, and the Berkshire Theatre Critics awarded him the Larry Murray Award for his leadership of the company. He received an Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Production for A Midsummer Night's Dream at Boston Theatre Works, and his production of The Pillowman at the Contemporary American Theatre Company received awards for best production and best direction. At Smith College, his productions have included Our Dear Dead Drug Lord, As You Like It, The Wolves, Henry V and Polaroid Stories.

Kramer’s play Pride@Prejudice, published by Playscripts, was commissioned and produced by Available Light Theatre, and produced by Capital Repertory Theatre, Chester Theatre Company, and theatres around the country. His play My Jane was commissioned by Available Light Theatre and produced there and at Chester Theatre Company. Coyote Tales, created with Allan Hayton, is published by Samuel French and has been produced by numerous theatre companies. His adaptations of Babar and James Thurber's Many Moons were commissioned and produced by Phoenix Theatre Company. His play Love Suicide was produced in a residency at Cleveland Public Theatre and in a workshop at Boston Theatre Works.

His short film Recently, Long Ago premiered at the Palm Springs International Short Film Festival in 2015. His feature film, Kitchen Hamlet, a contemporary setting of Shakespeare's Hamlet, won awards as an official selection at film festivals throughout the United States. He was a visiting artist at the Wexner Center for the Arts, which supported the editing of Kitchen Hamlet.

Kramer is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC) and the Dramatists Guild. He was a founding artistic director of Salt Lake Shakespeare and assistant to the artistic director of Spiral Stage and assistant to the artistic director of Circle Repertory Theatre. Previous teaching includes Kenyon College (where he was chair of dance and theater), Bowdoin College and Fordham University at Lincoln Center.