Gus Kaikkonen (Artistic Director) is very happy to celebrate his 24th season at the Players. In 2016 he was the stage director for his own translation of Berlioz’s Lelio for the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra at NJPAC in Newark. Other recent directing credits include his own new translations of two plays by Jules Romains, Donogoo and Dr. Knock, both Off Broadway at the Mint Theater, and Andy Dolan’s This Verse Business, starring Gordon Clapp, which was selected the Best Production of Manhattan’s United Solo Festival, The 39 Steps at Bristol Riverside, the Mint’s American premiere of N. C. Hunter’s A Picture of Autumn, Shaw’s The Philanderer for the Pearl Theatre at City Center, and Guys and Dolls at the Stevens Center in Winston-Salem, NC to honor the 50th anniversary of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
His original plays have been produced Off Broadway at the New York Musical Theatre Festival and Playwrights Horizons, at regional theatres across the country and in the UK at London’s New End Theatre and the Theatre Museum, and at Alan Ayckbourn’s Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough. Writing awards include two grants from the New York State Arts Council as well as the Michigan Arts Council, the Lecomte du Nouys Playwriting Award, and Thurber and MacDowell Fellowships. The American Theatre Critics Association selected his play Time Steps as one of the ten best plays to open in regions. His musical Cindy Reilly, written with Kraig Swartz and Ellen Mandel, won Michigan’s Thespie Award for Best New Play. People Like Us won the 2002 NH Theatre Award for Best New Play. He has worked as a visiting artist at Juilliard, NYU, the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, University of Houston, Hofstra, Ohio State, and Connecticut College.
He made his Broadway acting debut in the original cast of Equus. Other New York acting credits include Mary Broome and House of Mirth at the Mint, Tommy Tune’s American premiere production of Cloud 9, and The Country Girl with Hal Holbrook. On television he co-starred in PBS’s Paul’s Case with Eric Roberts, appeared on Law & Order SVU and Criminal Intent, and had continuing roles on ABC’s All My Children and One Life to Live. He has performed at the Long Wharf, Folger, Goodman, Asolo, GeVa, Arden, American Heartland, Aspen, and BoarsHead Theatres, and the Coconut Grove Playhouse. He received Vermont’s 2000 Bessie Award for Best Actor for Richard III at the Lost Nation Theatre. Additional directing credits include Off Broadway productions of Antigone (Wall Street Journal Best of 2006) for the Phoenix Theatre Ensemble; Arms and the Man, The Gentleman Dancing Master, I Have Been Here Before, and Heartbreak House at the Pearl; Macbeth with Stephen McHattie, Candida with Laurie Kennedy at Playhouse 91, Richard III with Austin Pendleton at Riverside Shakespeare; the New York premieres of Harley Granville-Barker’s The Voysey Inheritance, The Charity That Began At Home, Farewell to the Theatre, and The Madras House; and Susan Sandler’s Under the Bed at HB Playwrights Theatre. In the regions, he has directed at Ford’s Theatre (Trying with James Whitmore), the Asolo, the Philadelphia Theatre Company, Goodspeed, and the Coconut Grove Playhouse (About Time with Theodore Bikel).
Since 1996 he has been the Artistic Director of the Peterborough Players, where he has staged more than 85 plays. His Peterborough productions of The Cherry Orchard, You Can’t Take It With You, About Time, Inherit the Wind, Heartbreak House, Freud’s Last Session, Measure for Measure, Auld Lang Syne and Outside Mullingar have all won New Hampshire Theatre Awards for Best Professional Production.
His original plays have been produced Off Broadway at the New York Musical Theatre Festival and Playwrights Horizons, at regional theatres across the country and in the UK at London’s New End Theatre and the Theatre Museum, and at Alan Ayckbourn’s Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough. Writing awards include two grants from the New York State Arts Council as well as the Michigan Arts Council, the Lecomte du Nouys Playwriting Award, and Thurber and MacDowell Fellowships. The American Theatre Critics Association selected his play Time Steps as one of the ten best plays to open in regions. His musical Cindy Reilly, written with Kraig Swartz and Ellen Mandel, won Michigan’s Thespie Award for Best New Play. People Like Us won the 2002 NH Theatre Award for Best New Play. He has worked as a visiting artist at Juilliard, NYU, the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, University of Houston, Hofstra, Ohio State, and Connecticut College.
He made his Broadway acting debut in the original cast of Equus. Other New York acting credits include Mary Broome and House of Mirth at the Mint, Tommy Tune’s American premiere production of Cloud 9, and The Country Girl with Hal Holbrook. On television he co-starred in PBS’s Paul’s Case with Eric Roberts, appeared on Law & Order SVU and Criminal Intent, and had continuing roles on ABC’s All My Children and One Life to Live. He has performed at the Long Wharf, Folger, Goodman, Asolo, GeVa, Arden, American Heartland, Aspen, and BoarsHead Theatres, and the Coconut Grove Playhouse. He received Vermont’s 2000 Bessie Award for Best Actor for Richard III at the Lost Nation Theatre. Additional directing credits include Off Broadway productions of Antigone (Wall Street Journal Best of 2006) for the Phoenix Theatre Ensemble; Arms and the Man, The Gentleman Dancing Master, I Have Been Here Before, and Heartbreak House at the Pearl; Macbeth with Stephen McHattie, Candida with Laurie Kennedy at Playhouse 91, Richard III with Austin Pendleton at Riverside Shakespeare; the New York premieres of Harley Granville-Barker’s The Voysey Inheritance, The Charity That Began At Home, Farewell to the Theatre, and The Madras House; and Susan Sandler’s Under the Bed at HB Playwrights Theatre. In the regions, he has directed at Ford’s Theatre (Trying with James Whitmore), the Asolo, the Philadelphia Theatre Company, Goodspeed, and the Coconut Grove Playhouse (About Time with Theodore Bikel).
Since 1996 he has been the Artistic Director of the Peterborough Players, where he has staged more than 85 plays. His Peterborough productions of The Cherry Orchard, You Can’t Take It With You, About Time, Inherit the Wind, Heartbreak House, Freud’s Last Session, Measure for Measure, Auld Lang Syne and Outside Mullingar have all won New Hampshire Theatre Awards for Best Professional Production.