David Kersnar

Co-Author of "20,000 Leagues Under the Seas" (Play adaptation)

January 10, 2022

David Kersnar, is a founding ensemble member of the Tony Award winning Lookingglass Theatre Company and has performed, designed, written, instructed, produced and directed with the company since it was founded in 1988, serving twice as the Lookingglass Artistic Director and Lookingglass Education Founder and Director. Kersnar recently co-wrote and directed the smash-hit adaptation of "Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas." Kersnar has also worked with the Goodman, Steppenwolf, Remains, Alley, Touchstone, Actor’s Gang, Natya Dance and Chicago Children’s Theatres; The Brooklyn Academy of Music, Actor’s Gymnasium, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Lyric Opera and Chicago Children’s Choir. Directing and writing credits include Sita Ram, The Last Act Of Lilka Kadison, La Luna Muda, The Magic Victrola, Popcorn and Pasquale, Don Quixote, Pulchinella, In the Green Meadow, Goodnight Moon, Flying Griffin Circus, Brundibar, Through the Looking Glass, The Lookingglass World Circus and Lookingglass Lab. Kersnar co-founded Shaking The Tree Interactive Productions, writing and directing filmed and live business case studies. Film and television credits include U.S. Marshals, Since You’ve Been Gone, Early Edition and Turks. Kersnar received his Master of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Science from Northwestern University. Kersnar currently serves as Head of Theatre and Dance at Oklahoma State University.

Based on Jules Verne’s landmark works of science fiction, this critically acclaimed adaptation reveals the true history of Professor Morgan Aronnax’s adventures as a prisoner of Captain Nemo, master of the submersible war machine, Nautilus. This adaptation casts Professor Aronnax as a woman who has hidden her gender from the public at the behest of the French minister of science and is accompanied by her loyal friend, Brigette Conseil. At the end of the American Civil War, a handful of Union Army POW castaways in the South Pacific discover Nemo—long thought dead—still haunting his now-crippled vessel. A debate arises between the men and the aged captain: in his years-long private war for revenge, was Nemo justified? Morally responsible? “Did I do right—or did I do wrong?” Launched by that question, the play chronicles the interwoven histories of Aronnax and Nemo—their clashes of will confronting monsters without and within—as they voyage beneath the world’s oceans to the unclaimed tundra of the South Pole.

URL: https://library-dep.okstate.edu/news/celebratingbooks/2022-honorees/david-kersnar

Last Updated: 19 January 2022