David Zinder ('76, Ph.D.)

If you would like to submit a nomination for the "Featured Alumni" section on our website, please email: jreil@berkeley.edu

ALUMNI NEWSLETTER:
Download our 2008 Newsletter

ALUMNI: SEND US YOUR NEWS!
If you would like to be included in the Department's newsletter or would like to receive announcements about upcoming performances and events, please email your name and mailing address to: jreil@berkeley.edu
or mail your name, email and mailing address to: Alumni Updates, Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, 101 Dwinelle Annex #2560, Berkeley, CA 94720-2560

David Zinder ('76, Ph.D.)
"Perhaps one of the most important aspects of my life is the fact that despite being born in Israel into a family that has roots in Jerusalem going back to the 16th century, most of my intellectual development - grade school, university, and graduate school - was in English. As the son of a diplomat in the Israeli foreign service I spent seven years of my childhood in Washington and New York, then later completed my BA at Manchester University in England, and then - after a six-year career as a professional actor in Israel - moved on to the Ph.D. program in Dramatic Arts at Berkeley.

Berkeley for me was a major turning point in my life for many reasons. Not only because of the degree, the excellent training I received as a budding director, and the first steps I took into the world of imagistic theater - which is my passion to this day - but also because it was there I discovered that I loved teaching. It was there, too, that among all the wonderful teachers we had at the time, I first met Bill Oliver, who, in time, became first my Ph.D. thesis director and then my dear and close friend. He was a demanding but deeply encouraging thesis mentor, and in many ways it was due to him that my thesis - The Surrealist Connection: An Approach to a Surrealist Aesthetic of Theatre - was eventually chosen in 1980 to be published by UMI, Ann Arbor. His influence on my theater thinking and practice was enormous, and his untimely death at the age of 66 left a big hole in my life. Recently, while directing Lorca's Don Perlimplin at Cal State Long Beach (December 2006) and Ibsen's Peer Gynt at the Hungarian State Theatre of Cluj, Romania (March 2008), I dedicated both productions to this extraordinary man.  

This love of teaching turned into a 28-year career as a teacher of acting and directing at the Theater Arts Department at Tel Aviv University, which was also a career of researching the art of the actor and the bases of actors' creativity. Influenced by workshops and professional friendships with Joseph Chaikin, as well as with Eugenio Barba and the actors of the Odin Theatre, I began developing a form of actor training that eventually became known as ImageWork Training , and is the subject matter of my book BODY   VOICE   IMAGINATION: A Training for the Actor (Routledge 2002). In the 90's by a series of happy accidents, I learned about the close connection between my form of actor training and the Michael Chekhov Technique, and after an intensive period of study I became a Master Teacher of the Chekhov Technique, and since then have been teaching both techniques in tandem. A second edition of my book is due to be published in 2009 with an added chapter on the symbiosis between ImageWork Training and the Michael Chekhov Technique. In 1995 I was among a handful of teachers who created the Michael Chekhov Association (MICHA), where I am still active to this day.

In 2004 I took early retirement from Tel Aviv University, and have devoted myself exclusively to directing, mostly - and perhaps most surprisingly - at the Hungarian State Theatre of Cluj, in Romania where I have been a regular guest director since 2002.