Biography.
RON DESTRO is a Kennedy Center award-winning playwright, was named a Top Ten director by Time Out Magazine (London), and is an actor and teacher who has staged over 100 plays and more than 40 Shakespeare productions in New York, London, Stratford-upon-Avon, Italy and France. He is the founding director of the New York-based Oxford Shakespeare Company, which offers professional masterclasses and trains actors to present Shakespeare plays in London and Stratford-upon-Avon, as well as in their original settings, such as at Elsinore, Birnam Wood, Bosworth Field, Flint Castle, Venice, and Azincourt. In addition to teaching at several universities, he created an acting program for the Joffrey Ballet School in New York City and currently teaches at the University of North Florida.
He has studied with Cicely Berry, Kristin Linklater, Lucille Ball, John Houseman and for 12 years privately with Royal Shakespeare Company founder John Barton.
Ron attended the Marymount Royal Academy of Dramatic Art Program in London, and the USC School of Drama. He taught Christopher Reeve to smoke, wrote a play with Yoko Ono, was banned for life from Caesar’s Palace by Frank Sinatra, went on tour with Natalie Merchant and 10,000 Maniacs, had F Murray Abraham as his grad school faculty advisor, almost ran over Michael York in his mountain toboggan, was told by Groucho Marx to give somebody “the finger,” and studied painting with Pierre Henri Matisse.
His new book, The Shakespeare Masterclasses, has been published by Routledge. He is the proud father of Nicholas.
“Ron Destro is one of those rare people of the theater who cares as deeply about the theater as anyone I’ve ever worked with, including Pina Bausch, Richard Foreman, Andrei Şerban, Miloš Forman, Lar Lubovitch and Twyla Tharp. His knowledge is extensive and accessible, not pompous. He invites all to the table. There is something for everyone in his joyous message. He introduces to all, all, the idea that Shakespeare is indeed a man for all ages. I consider it a privilege to know him and to have worked with him.”
- Academy Award-winner F Murray Abraham
“I have been a friend of OSC director Ron Destro for some time, and can confirm his great gifts as a writer, director and educator.”
- Michael York