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Thomas Caron

Thomas Caron is the founder and artistic director of Shanghai Shakespeare, China’s first Mandarin speaking theater company dedicated to performing Shakespeare’s plays. Beginning with “Antony and Cleopatra” in 2012, which remained in its repertory through the end of 2014, Shanghai Shakespeare has staged productions of “Pericles, Prince of Tyre,” “Troilus and Cressida,” and the first authorized Chinese productions of Samuel Beckett’s “Play,” “Come and Go,” “Footfalls,” and “What Where.”

From 2002 to 2007 Thomas was the artistic director of The Town Cow Theater Company of Concord, Massachusetts, presenting free outdoor productions in Anne Chamberlain Park of “Timon of Athens,” “Measure for Measure,” “King John,” “Hamlet,” new translations of Jean Cocteau’s “The Infernal Machine” and “Bacchus,” plus two original works, “2 Tales” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe, and an adaptation of William Saroyan’s novel, “The Adventures of Wesley Jackson.”

Thomas directed the Concord Players’ 2003 production of “Twelfth Night,” played Leroy, the misfit handyman in “The Bad Seed,” co-produced “The Memory of Water,” and directed a Shakespeare Workshop that presented scenes from “Hamlet.”

Thomas received his training at the hands of the 20th century’s legendary teachers Sanford Meisner, Harold Clurman, and Robert Lewis. His career extends over fifty years, on stages from Los Angeles to New York to the U.K. to China. He has performed the title roles of "Hamlet," "Macbeth," "King Lear," "Timon of Athens," "Richard the Second," "King John," and "The Misanthrope," as well as Leontes in "The Winter's Tale," Cassius in "Julius Caesar," Angelo in "Measure for Measure," Prospero in "The Tempest," Constantine in "The Seagull," The Cardinal in Jean Cocteau's "Bacchus," M in Samuel Beckett's "Play," and many other classical and contemporary characters. In April 2009 he played Vladimir in East West Theater's production of "Waiting for Godot," at Shanghai Theatre Academy. In October 2009 he performed the title role in East West Theater’s presentation of Henrik Ibsen’s “The Master Builder.” He reprised the title role of “King Lear” at Shanghai Repertory Theater, and directed their productions of “A Christmas Carol,” “Twelfth Night,” and Samuel Beckett’s “Catastrophe” and “Rough for Theatre II.”

In 2017, with the blessing of the Beckett Estate, Thomas performed the theatrical premiere of an adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s novel, “Malone Dies,” which will have its American debut at 51 Walden in August of this year.

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