Joshua William Gelb is a director, performer, and librettist whose work runs the gamut from devised physical theater, to stylized adaptations of classics, to original musicals as well as collaborations with emerging playwrights. With an eye for the highly theatrical verging on the cinematic, Gelb’s direction has been known to feature striking integrations of music, movement, clowning, and dance. Recent projects include a re-imagining of America’s supposed first musical The Black Crook at Abrons Arts Center, about which he recently lectured at Harvard University's Houghton Library. His adaptation of Kafka's A Hunger Artist, developed with Sinking Ship Productions, was part of the Tank's Flint and Tinder series and has since travelled to the Edinburgh Fringe and continues to tour. Other productions include Bear Slayer (Ars Nova), Party in the USA (Incubator Arts Project/Edinburgh Fringe), Clara Not Clara: A Nutcracker (Minnesota Dance Theater / Knockdown Center / LMCC Process Space), Sometimes in Prague (Ice Factory / Joe's Pub / Polyphone Festival), Love My Band (Dixon Place), Dukus (Target Margin Lab), and Blind Alley Guy (Incubator Arts Project). The album of his pirate musical Hail Oblivion is currently available on Bandcamp. He is a frequent contributor to Little Theater at Dixon Place, and has directed several successfully returning #Serials at The Flea. With Room5001 Theater, Gelb conceived and directed the notoriously revisionist all-male Man of La Mancha. Gelb received his BFA at NYU Tisch’s Playwrights Horizons Theater School and his MFA in directing at Carnegie Mellon's School of Drama where he graduated as a John Wells Fellow. He has assisted Marianne Weems (The Builders Association) and Rebecca Taichman (Soho Rep), is a member of the 2012 Lincoln Center Directors Lab, and an associate artist with Sinking Ship Productions.