Leadership
Michael Bloom
Artistic Director
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Michael Bloom is the eighth artistic director of Cleveland Play House. Recently for Cleveland Play House he adapted Emma and directed Lost in Yonkers, Heaven's My Destination, The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Lincolnesque, Rabbit Hole, and Well. He has directed at many of the country's major theatres, including American Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Rep, Old Globe Theatre, South Coast Rep, Seattle Rep, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Manhattan Theatre Club, Alley Theatre, Alliance Theatre Company, Cleveland Play House, Long Wharf Theatre, and the Sundance Playwrights' Institute. His productions have also been seen throughout Japan and in Tokyo at the Aoyama Theatre and Theatre Cocoon. His off Broadway production of Sight Unseen garnered three Obie Awards, and he received a Drama Desk nomination for direction. Other productions include the American premiere of A Young Lady from Rwanda; Gross Indecency, Elliott Norton Award for Best Directing, 1998; the world premiere of Dinner with Friends at Actors Theatre of Louisville; Los Angeles premieres of The Cryptogram and The Old Neighborhood at the Geffen Playhouse; Major Barbara and The Philadelphia Story at Kansas City Rep; and the world premiere of Tennessee Williams' Spring Storm. Among the many playwrights he's worked with are John Robin Baitz, Anthony Clarvoe, Don DeLillo, John Guare, David Hare, William Hauptman, Arthur Kopit, Neil Labute, David Lodge, Donald Margulies, David Mamet, and Wallace Shawn. Mr. Bloom has been associate artistic director at the Hartman Theatre Company and associate director at American Repertory Theatre, and co-founder of Actors Repertory of Texas. He has taught at New York University, Harvard University, University of Texas, and Scripps College. His articles have appeared in American Theatre Magazine and The New York Times; and his book Thinking Like a Director was published by Farrar, Straus, & Giroux in 2001.
Kevin Moore
Managing Director
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Kevin Moore is in his fourth season at Cleveland Play House. He serves on the Board of Directors of the National Corporate Theatre Fund and the AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland, and serves on the Membership Committee of the Commission on Economic Inclusion. From 1998-2007, Mr. Moore served as managing director of Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, DC, where he helped lead that company in the funding and construction of an award-winning new theatre facility. Previous positions include director of marketing at La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, California, and marketing director at Delaware Theatre Company. He is a former president of both the National New Play Network and the League of Washington Theatres. Mr. Moore holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from Moorhead (Minnesota) State University and a Master's degree in Arts Administration from Indiana University, and is a member of Leadership Cleveland Class of 2009.
Laura Kepley
Associate Artistic Director
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Laura Kepley joined Cleveland Play House in 2010 as Associate Artistic Director and comes to Cleveland from Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island. Previously, she served as a Resident Director and Artistic Associate for four seasons and Interim Head of the MFA Graduate Program in Directing at Brown University/Trinity Rep for one. While at Trinity Rep, she directed The Clean House, The Syringa Tree, and Shapeshifter. Kepley also co-created and directed the world premiere docu-dramas Boots on the Ground, which examined the local impact of the war in Iraq, and Some Things are Private, which used photographs of American photographer Sally Mann to explore parenting and First Amendment issues. Both of these Trinity Rep commissions were co-created with and written by Deborah Salem Smith. Kepley has directed the world premieres of over 20 plays including Jennifer Haley's Breadcrumbs (Contemporary American Theatre Festival), George Brant's shop talk (Drama League's DIRECTORFEST) and Elephant's Graveyard (The University of Texas Austin), Laura Schellhardt's The K of D (Kennedy Center and UCF/ Orlando Shakespeare Festival), and Trista Baldwin's Falling Up (Perishable Theatre.) She has workshopped new plays with New York's Public Theater, Play Penn, Naked Angels, and WordBRIDGE Playwright's Lab. A native Ohioan, Kepley received her undergraduate degree from Northwestern University and her Masters in Fine Arts from Brown University/Trinity Rep. She is a Drama League Fellow and a recipient of the 2009-2011 NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Directors. Kepley is “thrilled to be joining Cleveland Play House at such a transformational moment in its esteemed history.
