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DAVID WASSILAK
Associate Artistic Director
David has performed many roles in his long theatrical career, from actor to producer to house manager, and literally everything in between. He got an early start in grade school, acting and directing; and in high school he worked backstage a couple of years until he got the urge again to climb up on the boards. David received a Bachelor of Arts degree in speech communications with a theatre emphasis from the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where he worked in front of and behind the curtain, building his skills as an actor, and building the sets on which he acted.
While finishing college, David added stage manager to his list of credits, getting his first professional experience at the Fredericksburg Theatre Company in Virginia. In 1988, David moved to Chicago where he stage managed for many companies, including the Irish Heritage Players, the Chicago Theater Collective, and Edge Productions. While in Chicago, he acted with Kamijo Theatre and New Flight.
In 1990 David returned to St. Louis and began working again as technical director and performer for companies including St. Louis Shakespeare, Arts Council of Lafayette Park and City Players. Not long thereafter, he began working with a company he would devote seven years to—Orthwein Theatre Company—where, incidentally, he worked with fellow STLAS co-founders, Milt and William. Here, David wore the hat of actor, playing Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, George in Of Mice and Men and Kilgore Trout in Breakfast of Champions, and Wesley in Curse of the Starving Class to name a few; and as director, with credits such as Sincerity Forever, A Moon for the Misbegotten, God’s Country and Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll; and worked his way to becoming associate artistic director.
Another milestone in David’s career was co-founding The Midnight Company with fellow St. Louis actor/director/writer Joe Hanrahan. Among his credits here included directing Eric Bogosian’s Pounding Nails in the Floor With My Forehead and The Worst of Eric Bogosian; co-directing and co-starring in The Hunchback Variations; playing Jesse James in a Midnight Company original, The Ballad of Jesse James; and playing Roy Disney in Walt and Roy.
Among these milestones were other acting stand-outs—from the serious—playing Cassius with St. Louis Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Tilden in Muddy Waters’ Buried Child, and Midas in St. Louis Shakespeare’s Metamorphoses—to the downright hilarious—appearing in countless Magic Smoking Monkey productions (a company known for adapting really bad film for the stage…on purpose), including Valley of the Dolls, Plan Nine from Outer Space and even starring as Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood’s classic Glen or Glenda.
FOUNDING MEMBERS
William Roth, Milton Zoth, David Wassilak, Executive Board
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