Gatz

Elevator Repair Service is a New York City-based company that creates original works for live theater with an ongoing ensemble. The company's sources range from found material (transcripts of trials, old movies, YouTube videos) to literature and conventional plays (both classical and contemporary). Founded in 1991, ERS has authored an extensive body of work that includes 19 original theatrical productions. These have earned the company a loyal following and made it one of New York’s most highly acclaimed experimental theater companies.

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American fiction writer, whose works helped to illustrate the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age. Fitzgerald attended Princeton University, where he honed his craft as a writer, contributing to Nassau Lit, The Princeton Tiger, and The Princeton Triangle Club. An original autographed manuscript of The Great Gatsby (1925) can be found at The Princeton University Library.

John founded Elevator Repair Service in 1991. Since then, he has directed or co-directed all of the company’s productions. John is the recipient of a Doris Duke Artist Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship in Drama and Performance Art and a United States Artists Donnelley Fellowship. John received the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Director and the Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Director for ERS’ production of GATZ. John was born in North Carolina and raised in Georgia. He holds a combined degree in English Literature and Theater Studies from Yale.

Seven ERS productions since 1994 including MEASURE FOR MEASURE; GATZ (Obie Award); CAB LEGS and SHUT UP I TELL YOU (I SAID SHUT UP I TELL YOU). Over a dozen productions with The Wooster Group since 1997, including THE TOWN HALL AFFAIR, VIEUX CARRE, HAMLET, POOR THEATER (Obie and Bessie Awards), and TO YOU, THE BIRDIE! Other theater: STRAIGHT WHITE MEN in Paris, Berlin, Athens, and Toronto; THE VILLAGE BIKE at MCC; BLOOD KNOT at Signature Theater. Film: The Torture Report (upcoming), X-Men: Dark Phoenix (upcoming), Hostiles, Norman, Jason Bourne, Bridge of Spies, And So It Goes, Side Effects. Serials: "True Detective" (season 3, upcoming), "Wormwood", "The Young Pope", "Elementary."

With ERS: GATZ (all full production runs) and THE SOUND AND THE FURY at the REDCAT, Los Angeles. Jim is a founding member of New York City Players theater company. He often performs with The Wooster Group, most recently in A PINK CHAIR (IN A PLACE OF A FAKE ANTIQUE) (2017-18) at Bard College, REDCAT Los Angeles, and the Performing Garage, NYC. Recipient of Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Performance (2012, NYC).

With ERS: EVERYONE’S FINE WITH VIRGINIA WOOLF, THE SOUND AND THE FURY & the original cast of GATZ (as Catherine). Selected theater: SLAVE PLAY (NYTW); IOWA (Playwrights Horizons, Lortel Nomination); WE’RE GONNA BE OKAY (Humana/ATL); MAP OF VIRTUE (13P); THAT PRETTY PRETTY (Rattlestick); RAPTURE, BLISTER, BURN (Huntington). Film: Blue Jasmine. TV: “Orange is the New Black,” “The Knick,” “Mozart in the Jungle.” With Clubbed Thumb, where she is an affiliated artist: THE WORLD MY MAMA RAISED; TOMB OF KING TOT; 41-DERFUL; LAY ME DOWN, JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE; U.S. DRAG.