Lester Thomas Shane

Lester Thomas Shane's work as an actor, director and writer has been seen on television, film, the New York stage and in regional theatre.

His directing credits include Macbeth, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, The Tempest (Artistic Director, Shakespeare at the Met, Jacksonville, FL), Bright Room Called Day, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Sweet Phoebe, Science Gets Serious (Cleveland Public Theatre); Awake and Sing (Halle Theatre), Shatter The Vessel (Charlottesville New Play Festival); Last Chance For Happiness, Loot (T.Schreiber Studio); Hedda Gabler, Summer & Smoke (Manhattan Theatre Club); The White Whore and the Bit Player (The Production Company); Pretty Witty Nell, Grit in a Sensitive Instrument (Vineyard) DisConnections (45th St Theatre) and the award-winning, Asylum (Wonderland Festival). As Director in Residence at The Basic Theatre, he directed the New York premieres of Shaviana, Bertolt Brecht: In Dark Times, The Haircut, and Santa Monica Threeway, revivals of Sure Thing, Let us Go Into The Starry Night and Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus. In addition he has directed numerous readings and workshops and has worked with the literary departments of Manhattan Theatre Club, Westbeth and Hartford Stage.

Lester has been a contributing writer for A&E Monthly Magazine and Facilities. For A&E Network Television's popular Biography series, he wrote James Brown, Tyrone Power, and Carmen Miranda. For AMC he wrote, 20th Century Fox: The First Fifty Years; and for the Discovery Network, Nazis: The Occult Conspiracy. For Lost In Vision, Walk Like A Man: Blood Sweat and Queers. With Penelope Brackett he wrote Seven Keys to Success Without Struggle now in its second edition. He wrote Survivor star Rupert Boneham's recent memoir: Rupert Just Being Me.

As an actor Lester played leading roles like Mercutio, Tartuffe and Puck at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and served as the company Voice and Movement Master for three years. Other acting credits include Ariel in The Tempest (People's Light & Theatre Co.), He in Edward Albee's Counting the Ways, and a tour of All Compact. Film credits include Cotton Club, Annie Hall, Fame, Marathon Man and Saturday Night Fever

His award-winning one-man show, Mortal Coil has been produced for video and has been incorporated into Columbia University and UCLA's curriculum for training doctors on end-of-life care. Lester continues to tour the production nationwide.

Lester is on the faculty of The American Academy of Dramatic Art, The New York Film Academy, Marymount Manhattan College, Pace University, and the TADA! Ensemble. He was invited to give the keynote address at the 2001 National Teaching Training Institute sponsored by PBS.