Robert Cohen is now emeritus Claire Trevor Professor of Drama at UC Irvine. Cohen was the founding chair of the department, serving fifty years thereafter as a teacher, director, playwright, translator, drama critic, acting theorist and prominent author. Born in Washington DC, Robert studied at Dartmouth College and UC Berkeley, and received his Doctor of Fine Arts from the Yale School of Drama. He has since directed over a hundred productions at UCI, at the Utah and Colorado Shakespeare Festivals, and at regional professional theatres in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Richmond and San Francisco; he has also given invited acting classes, lectures and workshops around the world. He has published eleven works, with several in multiple editions. He has also published translations of classical plays, two anthologies of world-famous plays, nine plays of his own, thirty-five journal essays, four hundred-plus theatre reviews, and a personal memoir entitled Falling Into Theatre – and Finding Myself. Robert has been honored with the UCI Medal, the UCI Claire Trevor Professorship and Bren Fellowship, the Career Achievement Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, the Honoris Causa degree at Babes-Bolyai University in Romania, the Polish Medal of Honor, and the UCI’s Distinguished Faculty Award for Research. Now retired, Robert lives in Laguna Beach, California, with his wife, Lorna, and participates periodically in UCI discussions, seminars and theatrical activities.