Štěpàn Šimek is a director, translator, adaptor, and a Professor of Theatre, at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR. Over the past thirty years he has directed over forty theatre productions in New York, Seattle, San Francisco, and Portland; translated plays from Czech, German, and Russian, and adapted several novels, including Michael Bulgakov’s Heart of the Dog, Franz Kafka’s Amerika and Francois Villon’s The Testament for the stage. He is one of the authorized translators of the former President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel’s work, and his various translations and adaptations have been staged in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, and San Francisco, published in a number of anthologies, and received several awards, including the PEN America Translation Award, and “Eurodram” Award for best English translation of a foreign play. Most recently, he collaborated with the Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble (PETE) on developing and staging his contemporary translations of Anton Chekhov’s major plays, and with Musica Universalis on the creation of Dance Macabre: The Testament of Francois Villon, and Piercing the Veil: A Samhain Celebration. His latest translation of Karel Čapek’s seminal play R.U.R. has been published by the M.I.T. Press. He was born in Prague in what was then Czechoslovakia, lived in Switzerland, and came to the United States in 1986. He received a BA in Theatre from San Francisco State University, MFA in Theatre Directing from the University of Washington, and he was the 1996 Drama League of New York Directing Fellow.