ABOUT JOSHUA SPAFFORD

Joshua Spafford is an award winning actor and director/photographer and writer. Of his work on the New York stage, the New York Times says he is: “unseen since the death of Raul Julia”. Newsweek Magazine’s Creativity Issue has said he is: “an out of the box thinker”.

 

Some highlights of Joshua Spafford's career include performing the the title role in Richard the 3rd in NYC’s Central Park. Other title roles include Macbeth, Othello, Tamburlaine and  Gilgamesh for Pulitzer Prize Winner Yusef Komunyakka. Joshua started his career in Manila, Philippines over twenty years ago on the Repertory Philippines stage.

 

Joshua Spafford won the 2017 Philstage Gawad Buhay Award For Best Actor on the Philippine Stage his role in Pulitzer Nominee for Drama “In The Next Room” by Sarah Ruhl, produced by Repertory Philippines.

 

In NYC  Kirk Bromley, Sundance Grand Jury Winner Chad Gracia, Joshua Spafford and others cofounded Inverse Theater, dedicated to creating new American and World verse plays by Bromley, widely considered “the American Shakespeare”. New York Press Magazine named Inverse “Best Downton Theater Company”. There Joshua starred in and/or directed Bromley works for over a decade.  Inverse’s productions included work by Oscar/Tony Winner Bobby Lopez (Avenue Q, Book of Mormon, Frozen) , Tony Winner Mark Hollmann “Urinetown”) and more.

 

 Inverse Theater productions  Joshua Spafford helped originate as a director and/or actor included: "The Death of Griffin Hunter", "Midnight Brainwash Revival", "Life's Losses Loved", "Icarus and Aria", "The Death of Don Flagrante Delicto", "The American Revolution" and "On The Origin Of Darwin" for which Joshua received a nomination for Best Featured Actor by the Innovative Theater Awards.

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Other New York City based work includes: Title roles in "Tamburlaine" (Target Margin), Judas in  "Dear Judas" (Verse Theater Manhattan) : Petruchio in Taming of the Shrew (The Shakespeare Project in Central Park), Romeo & Juliet (Queens Theater In the Park), Whirligig (dir Loy Arcenas, Clubbed Thumb) ,The Forever Waltz (NY Premiere, The Workshop Theatre) by Booker Prize Winner Glyn Maxwell, the Off Broadway Premiere of Portrait of the Artist as Filipino (Ma-Yi Theater) as well as roles at the Classic Stage Company, the Classical Theater of Harlem, NADA and more. Joshua served as Director of Events for the New Globe Theater-an endeavor  to create a theater space inspired by Shakespeare’s Globe on Governor’s Island in NY Harbor. The New Globe’s Artistic Board included Kevin Kline, Al Pacino and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. Joshua cocreated Dahlia with P. Seth Bauer billed as a “nearly true fantastical fantasia” based on Joshua’s relationship with Dr. George Hodel, the lead suspect in the most iconic unsolved crime in American history, the Black Dahlia Murder. Dahlia was performed at the legendary Actors Studio in NYC.

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Some of his forty plus Manila stage productions include lead roles at Rep including Lost In Yonkers, Dancing at Lughnasa, Noises Off, The Miracle Worker, Fools, It Runs In the Family, Don’t Dress For Dinner, Cinderella as well as the casts of Les Miserables, My Fair Lady and more. Title roles included Macbeth (UP/The British Council), Othello (Anton Juan/World Theater Project), Oedipus Rex (UP/Jonas Sebastian). With the late Jonas Sebastian Joshua cofounded Actors Classic Ensemble where they directed classical works for mass audiences. He starred in the New Voice Company’s production of Angels in America (Asian Premiere director Bobby Garcia). Joshua’s Manila TV and film career includes over 30 TV Commercials including for Cititrust (Best Commercial Actor Creative Guild Award),  a lead role in the award winning tv drama Familia Zaragoza (ABS-CBN), he both directed and hosted the talk show ‘Round Midnight (ABS-CBN). He then went to London to study Shakespeare at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and directing on a British Council Grant.

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Joshua has been also been a photographer for the past ten years. His headshot studio photographed over 1,000 of NYC and LA’s actors cited by Backstage Magazine as an authority.  Joshua is currently in production to write and direct a feature film set  in turn of the century Philippines. 

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