Frank Dwyer is a poet, playwright, actor, theater director, co-translator with the late Nicholas Saunders of Russian plays, and author of young adult biographies of John Adams, Georges-Jacques Danton, King Henry VIII, and King James I. The Affliction of Glory: A Comedy About Tragedy, Frank's play about the great English actress Sarah Siddons, was commissioned by the Getty Center and premiered in a joint production with the Mark Taper Forum (Los Angeles). Frank and Nicholas Saunders have translated Anton Chekhov's major plays, including The Wood Demon, The Sea Gull, Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard, and nine of his comic one-acts; Maxim Gorky's The Summer People and Enemies; Mikhail Bulgakov's Zoyka's Apartment; Nikolai Gogol's The Government Inspector; Ivan Turgenev's A Month in the Country, and Aleksander Ostrovsky's The Forest (in preparation), their 20th collaboration. Some of their translations have been published by Smith & Kraus and by Samuel French, Inc.

Frank directed the premiere of their co-translation of The Wood Demon at the Mark Taper Forum. As a member of the Repertory Company of Lincoln Center, Frank appeared in Ellis Rabb's production of an earlier translation of Gorky's Enemies. He worked as an actor on Broadway, in the New York Shakespeare Festival, at the Roundabout Theater, the Quaigh Theater, Playwrights' Horizons, the Music-Theatre Group, and CSC. He won an Outlook "Best of the Year" citation for his performance as Falstaff in a version of both parts of Shakespeare's Henry IV at the Odyssey Theatre (LA). He is a frequent lecturer in the Los Angeles area, and has taught acting, dramaturgy for actors, and poetry workshops, as well as courses in play analysis, Shakespeare, Introduction to Theater, and the History of World Theater at the California Institute of the Arts, the University of Redlands, and UCLA, where he taught the theater portion of Robert Winter's popular cluster course, "Inside the Performing Arts."

Blog Entries by Frank Dwyer

Obama Inhaling Draws Criticism

Posted October 15, 2009 | 06:09 PM (EST)


Reports from multiple sources confirm that President Obama keeps inhaling, and this has sparked a new wave of criticism from the President's political opponents.

"He's been blithely pursuing this policy entirely on his own, of course," said John Boehner, House Republican leader, "without even his usual hollow claim of...

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Political Haiku: Progressives Demand Protection for Rogue Diplomat DeMint after Mission to Honduras

1 Comments | Posted October 1, 2009 | 09:58 PM (EST)


When you put him in
the airport squad car, please don't
bump his empty head.

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Political Haiku: Are We Standing Up to the Knuckle-Draggers?

4 Comments | Posted October 1, 2009 | 02:29 AM (EST)


Hooray! Finally!
An Opposition Party!
(He's Alan Grayson.)

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Political Haiku: If It's Broke, Fix It

2 Comments | Posted September 30, 2009 | 01:45 AM (EST)


Who voted against
the public option without
private donations?

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Political Haiku: Chuck Norris and His Buddies Give New Meaning to Rallying 'Round the Flag

1 Comments | Posted September 25, 2009 | 12:16 AM (EST)


Right-wing patriots,
stain your flags with tea! Right, Chuck?
Should they drink it first?

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Political Haiku: Bomb-Bomb McCain Warns Obama

1 Comments | Posted September 23, 2009 | 09:20 PM (EST)


Poor Bomb-Bomb, still not
ready. Send more troops! They can
protect each other!

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Political Haiku: Extremist of the Left

Posted September 22, 2009 | 03:19 AM (EST)


Extremist of the
left, he called me. I wish! But
I voted for him.

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Political Haiku: Progressives Defend Max

Posted September 16, 2009 | 11:37 PM (EST)


No fair for DC
cops to haul in Max Baucus
and let the johns walk!

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Political Haiku: Cheney Phones Olmert

Posted August 30, 2009 | 11:46 PM (EST)


Don't complain, Ehud.
Since November, George and I
can't get arrested.

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Political Haiku: What Is That Main Stream, Media?

3 Comments | Posted August 27, 2009 | 08:06 PM (EST)


How can you turn your
backs like this, and for so long,
on Michael Jackson?!

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Political Haiku: Redder States

Posted August 27, 2009 | 03:14 PM (EST)


Hotbeds of global
warming denial. Red states.
Formerly farm states.

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Political Haiku: (Mental) Health Care Bill

Posted August 21, 2009 | 12:43 PM (EST)


Let's add death panels,
but only for those who think
they're already there.

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Political Haiku: Bipartisanshit

1 Comments | Posted August 19, 2009 | 04:04 PM (EST)


Obama and Dems
achieve bail-out miracle:
near-dead GOP.

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Political Haiku: Cash for Clunkers

Posted August 2, 2009 | 07:23 PM (EST)


Please give poor Cindy
McCain the bonus so she
can get a new one.

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Political Haiku: Oh, Say Can You CNN?

Posted August 1, 2009 | 09:04 PM (EST)


Racist, homophobe,
hate-monger, birther, fool, Lou
Dobbs won't fit in haik

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The Least-Trusted Flack on CNN

5 Comments | Posted July 28, 2009 | 05:06 PM (EST)


The least-trusted flack on CNN, Wolf Blitzer, just interviewed Senator Jim DeMint. Blitzer allowed DeMint to explain why his tireless efforts over the years to secure real health care reform had all been thwarted by Democrats. In the course of this stand-up routine, DeMint supported the troglodyte Republican position by...

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Political Haiku: Uh-Oh

1 Comments | Posted July 21, 2009 | 04:24 PM (EST)


Somebody please tell
Taliban they're not allowed
to waterboard us!

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Political Haiku: The Audacity of Situational Justice

Posted July 20, 2009 | 04:47 PM (EST)


High crimes? Don't look back!
More than one way a man can
betray his country.

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Political Haiku: Clown Sessions

1 Comments | Posted July 18, 2009 | 05:11 PM (EST)


No Supreme Court for
Sonia? Then who does Jeff think
is okay-kay-kay?

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Political Haiku: Death of a Hero

1 Comments | Posted July 17, 2009 | 09:14 PM (EST)


How long will Cronkite
trump all other news? Too bad
he never moonwalked.

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