David Staller

David Staller, born November 16, 1955, in Glencoe, Illinois, is an American actor, theatre director, and the founding artistic director of Gingold Theatrical Group, an Off-Broadway theatre company he established in New York in 2006. His training included study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, acting instruction under Lee Strasberg and Uta Hagen, and cello study at the University of Southern California. His godmother was British actress Hermione Gingold, after whom he named his theatre company as a tribute.

Staller's Broadway career spanned from 1975 to 1987 and included productions of Evita, Hello, Dolly!, and Cabaret, in which he originated the role of Ernst Ludwig in the 1987 revival. Alongside his Broadway work, he has accumulated more than 50 Off-Broadway appearances, among them Gas Light, for which he received a Drama League Citation for Distinguished Performer, as well as Mrs. Warren's Profession, The Bald Soprano, and Hay Fever.

Staller became the first person to direct all 65 of George Bernard Shaw's plays, including Shaw's unfinished final work, Why She Would Not, for which he commissioned writers Israel Horovitz, David Cote, Michael Feingold, Jeremy McCarter, and Robert Simonson to compose their own endings. His adaptations of Shaw's work for Gingold Theatrical Group draw on Shaw's original handwritten manuscripts, letters, production scripts, notes, and interviews Staller conducted with individuals who knew and worked with Shaw, including Maurice Evans, Robert Morley, Wendy Hiller, Rex Harrison, and Deborah Kerr. Ten of his Off-Broadway Shaw productions have been filmed by the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center: Man and Superman (2012), You Can Never Tell (2013), Major Barbara (2014), Widowers' Houses (2016), Heartbreak House (2018), Caesar and Cleopatra (2019), Mrs. Warren's Profession (2021), Candida (2022), Arms and the Man (2023), and The Devil's Disciple (2024). Gingold Theatrical Group also presents monthly script-in-hand performances at Symphony Space in New York City and partners with several New York educational programs.

As a writer, Staller has worked as a script doctor for film and television production companies and authored a one-man show, Noel and Cole, which he performed at multiple venues including Carnegie Hall. He has also done voice-over work for radio and television campaigns and documentaries, and served as a voice actor in David Chesky's animated musical film The Mice War. Staller additionally leads discussions on Shaw and human rights.

In his personal life, Staller was in a relationship for 20 years with Robert Osborne, a journalist and host of Turner Classic Movies, until Osborne's death in 2017. It was Staller who confirmed Osborne's death to the media.