Gerald Freedman (born June 25, 1927) is an American theatre director, librettist, and lyricist, and a college dean.
Born in Lorain, Ohio, Freedman was educated at Northwestern University, where he received both BA and MA degrees. He began his career as assistant director of such projects as Bells Are Ringing, West Side Story, and Gypsy. His first credit as a Broadway director was the 1961 musical The Gay Life. Additional Broadway credits include the 1964 and 1980 revivals of West Side Story, The Incomparable Max (1971), Arthur Miller's The Creation of the World and Other Business (1972), the 1975 and 1976 productions of The Robber Bridegroom, both of which garnered him Drama Desk Award nominations as Outstanding Director of a Musical, The Grand Tour (1979) with Joel Grey, and The School for Scandal (1995) with Tony Randall. He was also the off-Broadway director of the rock musical Hair when it premiered at the Public Theater.[1]
Freedman also wrote the book and lyrics for, as well as directed, the Broadway production of A Time for Singing, the short-lived 1966 musical adaptation of How Green Was My Valley.
In 2000, he became the first American to ever direct at the Globe Theatre in London.
Freedman has served as the Artistic Director of the New York Shakespeare Festival, as the Artistic Director of the Great Lakes Theater Festival, been on the faculty of the Yale School of Drama and the Juilliard School. At present he is Dean of Drama at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.