Dan McCleary (writer/director of A Swingin’ Christmas Cabaret; adapter of Moby-Dick & Song of Myself) is the Founder and Producing Artistic Director of Tennessee Shakespeare Company in Memphis now beginning its 19th season as the city’s first and only professional classical theatre and education organization dedicated to diverse performances of William Shakespeare’s plays as well as works of social significance by classical, Southern, and modern writers; and to providing innovative educational, training, and outreach programming year-round. On an annual operating budget of over one-million-dollars, TSC has created nearly 740,000 points of contact in 130 schools and with 85 site-specific plays, including in its permanent home – Tennessee’s only venue dedicated to classical work. At TSC, Dan most recently directed, played Petruchio in, and wrote the framing device for The Taming of the Shrew; created, directed, and acted in Grace of Grace: Shining a Light through Shakespeare’s Broken Villains; played the title role in Cyrano de Bergerac; directed the Free Shout-Out productions of The Comedy of Errors and The Tempest; and directed A Streetcar Named Desire. He also has directed for TSC: The Trouble Begins at Eight: Mark Twain, As You Like It (playing Jaques), Ada and the Engine, Blue Roses of Tennessee Williams (playing Tennessee with his son, Collins), Julius Caesar, Waiting for Godot, The Glass Menagerie (playing old Tom), The Taming of the Shrew (playing Sly), Richard III (playing Richard), To Kill a Mockingbird, Much Ado About Nothing, Ernest Hemingway in Key West, Flannery O’Connor’s Georgia Gothic, All’s Well That Ends Well, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, The Tempest, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the all-female Julius Caesar, Othello, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), Themes from a Midsummer Night with IRIS Orchestra, Classical Creations in Quarantine, and Shakespeare’s Election of Coriolanus. Other regional theatre directing and acting credits include shows at Seattle Shakespeare, Orlando Shakespeare, Georgia Shakespeare, and Shakespeare & Company, where he was an Artistic Associate and Director of Communications for many years. He has played over 120 roles on stage, including Coriolanus (thrice), Richard III (twice), Macbeth (twice), Falstaff, Marc Antony, Caliban, Brutus, Petruchio, Hotspur, Bottom, Master Ford, Stephano, Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus, Cassio, Bertram, Demetrius, Silvius, Herman Melville, Porfiry, Charles Dickens, The Gentleman Caller, Tom Wingfield, Hannah from Hamburg in La Cage, and Bertha Bumiller et. al. in the Greater Tuna series. Dan is a published poet, and the creator/director/actor of the plays Speak What We Feel: Shakespeare’s Radical Response to a Radical Time, Unto the Breach, Quintessence: Shakespeare in Performance, Classical Creations in Quarantine, and Grace of Grace. Memphis Magazine has named him among the “Who’s Who in Memphis” for seven years, including 2026. Dan presented his TEDx Talk “Shakespeare in Kindergarten, or Let Fall Rome” in Memphis in 2020, and the Germantown Arts Alliance honored him with its 2009 Distinguished Arts and Humanities Medal for Performing Arts. He holds a B.A. in Advertising and Journalism from Temple University, has served on the Boards of Herman Melville’s Arrowhead and the City of Germantown’s Telecommunications Commission, and he is the proud dad of 16-year-old twin musicians/athletes/Scouts/honors students, Sullivan and Collins.
