Award - winning British - based American director David Taylor has a string of international credits.

First among David's 1999 commitments is Neil Simon's THE PRISONER OF SECOND AVENUE starring Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Mason at the Haymarket Theatre, London followed by Arthur Miller's THE RIDE DOWN MOUNT MORGAN at Derby. The production of PRISONER endorses his affinity with the work of Simon - he previously directed LOST IN YONKERS with Maureen Lipman and Rosemary Harris at the Strand Theatre, and Anna Massey in the critically acclaimed British premiere of BROADWAY BOUND which opened at Greenwich, as well as THE ODD COUPLE, THE GINGERBREAD LADY and CHAPTER TWO at Sonning and THE LAST OF THE RED HOT LOVERS at Derby. In fact, following extensive work in the States, David made his London West End directorial debut with Neil Simon's hit musical THEY'RE PLAYING OUR SONG with Tom Conti and Gemma Craven at the Shaftesbury.

Recent U.K. assignments have included the concert presentation at the Theatre Royal Brighton of one of his forthcoming projects, the new musical WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE with Millicent Martin: the British premiere of Bernard Slade's play YOU SAY TOMATOES starring Christopher Timothy; the national tour of SOUTH PACIFIC with Jessica Martin and Mark Wynter; David Mamet's SPEED THE PLOW starring David Soul and Michael Brandon, and the British premiere of Wendy Wasserstein's THE HEIDI CHRONICLES with Susannah Harker and Peter Polycarpou at Greenwich. In the United States he worked on Robert Redford's musical theatre projects and Playwright's Laboratory at Sundance, Utah; and most recently David directed the musical play QUEEN OF THE STARDUST BALLROOM in Chicago.

David first came to London to supervise the transfer from Broadway of A CHORUS LINE to Drury Lane. Later, following the success of THEY'RE PLAYING OUR SONG, he directed Don Black's DEAR ANYONE with Jane Lapotaire, PUMP BOYS AND DINETTES and CAN-CAN - all in the West End - returning to the States to direct a new version of CHESS in New York, and to Canada for a spectacular production of THE WIZARD OF OZ which re-opened the Elgin Theatre in Toronto.

Amongst David's other U.K. credits are PLAINTIFF IN A PRETTY HAT with Ian Lavender; LUNCH GIRLS with Sylvia Syms, Gemma Craven and Jan Harvey, the thriller RICOCHET with Nigel Havers and Keith Barron; THE LION IN WINTER with David McCallum and Sian Phillips, and THE CEMETRY CLUB with Millicent Martin, Anne Charleston, Judy Cornwell and Carmen Silvera.

In 1985 David directed Andrew Lloyd Webber's CATS in Toronto winning Canada's top theatre award, a 'DORA', for Best Director and was promptly invited to direct the German version of CATS in Hamburg - his production bears the distinction of being Germany's first open-ended commercial production and is still playing to capacity audiences having celebrated its 12th birthday in 1998.