Paul D’Andrea
Scholar/playwright Paul D’Andrea began his career at Harvard, earning a B.A. in physics. After studying philosophy at Oxford, he returned to Harvard for a Ph.D. in English literature. He helped found the Institute of the Arts and the Theatre of the First Amendment at Mason. His prize-winning plays include The Trouble with Europe, A Full Length Portrait of America and The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay and are produced widely. He has taught at Harvard, the University of Chicago and the University of Minnesota. He won the Morse/Amoco Distinguished Teaching Award at Minnesota and the Teaching Excellence award at Mason. In 2000 his play The Einstein Project was presented at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge, MA. His adaptation for the twenty-first century of Nathan the Wise, G. E. Lessing’s Enlightenment classic about religious tolerance, was produced by Theatre of the First Amendment, opening two weeks after 9/11, filmed and broadcast by WETA/TV (PBS) in 2002, produced in 2003 in Rome by Centro Dionysia and the National Academy of Dramatic Art, and broadcast by RAI/TV in Italian. Professor D’Andrea teaches courses on topics such as Renaissance art, philosophy and literature; views of gender from Aristophanes through Much Ado about Nothing to Sex and the City; the moral vision of contemporary drama; and Shakespeare. He has written screenplays and is interested in linking the humanities and the arts through contemporary media.