Rupert Caplan

Rupert Caplan (October 3, 1896 – March 24, 1979) was a Canadian radio director, producer, and performer whose career spanned stage, radio, television, and film. Born in Montreal, Quebec, he grew up within the city's Jewish Canadian community and went on to become one of the central figures in the development of dramatic programming for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation during the twentieth century.

Caplan's stage work included an appearance on Broadway in 1924 in The Ancient Mariner. In Montreal, he was involved with local theatre companies including the Montreal Repertory Theatre and the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde. He joined the CBC as a producer shortly after the corporation's founding, and his work with its radio drama department is credited with cultivating a generation of emerging Canadian playwrights during the 1950s and 1960s, as well as a pool of professional actors who were able to sustain careers in Canada rather than relocating to the United States or the United Kingdom. Director Tyrone Guthrie attributed the viability of the Stratford Festival, Canada's largest annual theatre festival, in part to Caplan's efforts to develop and support Canadian acting talent.

Following the death of American playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1953, Caplan produced a CBC Radio tribute special that combined a biographical account of O'Neill's life with excerpts from his plays. The program was later credited with reviving critical and popular interest in O'Neill, whose reputation had diminished in his final years. O'Neill's widow, Carlotta Monterey, responded to the tribute by granting Caplan the exclusive rights to produce the Canadian premiere of Long Day's Journey into Night, a then-unknown work that posthumously premiered in 1956 and came to be regarded as O'Neill's greatest play.

Although radio remained his primary medium, Caplan also worked in television, writing and directing episodes of First Performance and Folio. He appeared in a small acting role in the 1950 film Forbidden Journey. In 1973, he received ACTRA's John Drainie Award for lifetime contributions to Canadian broadcasting at the 2nd ACTRA Awards.