LIFE IS A DREAM,THE PHANTOM LADY,THE CONSTNANT PRINCE,THE GREAT THEATRE OF THE WORLD Rick Davis is Artistic Director of Theater of the First Amendment, Associate Provost, and Professor of Theater at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, where he has worked since 1992. In six seasons at Baltimore's Center Stage, he worked as Resident Dramaturg and Associate Artistic Director. He was co-founder and Associate Director of the American Ibsen Theater in Pittsburgh. With Brian Johnston, he has translated five Ibsen plays that have seen productions in many leading regional theaters, colleges, and universities, and that are published by Smith and Kraus. Rick is the librettist for two works with composer Kim D. Sherman: The Songbird and the Eagle, an oratorio commissioned and premiered by San José Chamber Orchestra; and Love's Comedy, an opera based on the early Ibsen play. Active as a director of theater and opera, Rick has staged dozens of productions for professional companies across the country. His textbook, Writing About Theatre (with Christopher Thaiss), is used widely in college drama courses in the United States and Canada. His essays and reviews have appeared in American Theatre, Theater, The Journal of Social History, Theater Three, and other publications, and he has contributed to the Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama and the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World. Rick was educated at Lawrence University (B.A.) and the Yale School of Drama (M.F.A., D.F.A.). Calderón de la Barca (1600-1681)-by most accounts the greatest playwright of a great era, the luminous siglo de oro or Spanish Golden Age-remains best known in the English-speaking world for one play, Life Is a Dream. Like any truly great artist, however, Calderón's brilliance is impossible to understand through a single work. His range of subject, style, and tonality is vast, encompassing tragedy, metaphysics, romantic comedy, honor, illusion, reality, and religion. This group of plays demonstrates the scope of his achievement, in accessible, accurate, production-tested translations. Equally at home in the classroom or the theater, these texts bring a major playwright to life for English-speaking audiences. "Davis has achieved in his 2007 translation of Life Is a Dream what Calderon created for his characters in 1632-a revelation of true character. He has contrived to retain, even enhance, the images and poetry of the original-while making the language spring to vibrant life in the mouths of actors. More than simply playable, it is heart-stopping." -Rachel Katz Carey, artistic associate, theater simple, Seattle, Washington, guest director, Life Is a Dream, University of Minnesota Duluth "These eminently playable new translations make Calderón's theater accessible to contemporary audiences. By including a classic comedy of intrigue, The Phantom Lady, and the ever-relevant drama The Constant Prince, Rick Davis has given us a collection of major works that suggests the breadth of Calderon's theatrical genius." -Marion Peter Holt, professor emeritus of theatre, City University of New York