Richard Kuranda

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Richard Kuranda is an American director and artist of stage, cinema and television. He currently is the director of the Raue Center for the Arts in Crystal Lake, Illinois and the current Artistic Director of an Off Broadway company, Epic Repertory Theater Company. In 2005, The New York Times profiled Kuranda as one of the nation's top theater talents to watch (at the time he was the youngest producing director of a Tony Award winning Theater).

Born in 1969 in North Eastern Pennsylvania, Kuranda was educated at the Jesuit Scranton Preparatory, then attended West Virginia University as a scholarship student and at the Actors Studio program at the New School for Social Research from which he holds two Masters degrees under the guidance of Romulus Linney and Arthur Penn. As a graduate student he was mentored by Norman Mailer. Kuranda has lectured at Yale, Harvard, NYU and various others. He also served as an advocate for the United Nations in conjunction with the Universal Forum of Cultures in Barcelona 2004.

Kuranda's first professional film work was as a teenager, discovered by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Jason Miller. Kuranda worked for several years as a youth in the Scranton Theater. His first professional theatrical work was at the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival.

He is the former Producing Director of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. He also served as interim Artistic Director as well for The O'Neill and all its programs. He served as the Head of Operations at NY's Signature Theatre Company under James Houghton.

Kuranda is a lifetime member of The Actors Studio, and the former Director of Professional Development for The Actors Studio Drama School. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild and The Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.

Kuranda cites his collaborations with Bill Plympton, Al Pacino, JT Rogers and James Lipton as defining moments in his carrer.