Early life Born in
Bucharest, he is the son of George and Elpis Șerban. His father came from an old family of
Țara Chioarului in
Maramureș, studied law at
Leipzig, directed a bank and was close friends with
Iuliu Maniu, who attended Serban's baptism. After the onset of the
communist regime, George was fired and obliged to work as a photographer. His mother came from a family of Greek merchants settled in
Tulcea, originally from
Cephalonia. She worked as a teacher of Romanian language and literature. As a child, he was presenting puppet shows at home and staging mock battles with his friends in Bucharest's
Grădina Icoanei. From 1961 to 1968, he studied at the
Institute of Theatre and Film Arts (IATC). As a student, he directed
Julius Caesar, which he now calls his "most daring production ever". Set in the Japanese
Kabuki style, with a flower bridge built over the audience, and with Caesar's death performed in slow motion created an enormous scandal. After that, it became very hard for him to find a job in Romania. He made his debut with two pieces, on November 16, 1968 with
The Good Person of Szechwan by
Bertolt Brecht and at the following evening with the comedy
She stoops to conquer by
Oliver Goldsmith at
The Theater of Youth in
Piatra Neamț. In 1969, Șerban emigrated to the United States, with the help of
Ellen Stewart, and a grant from the
Ford Foundation. In 1970, he went to
Paris to study at
Peter Brook's
International Centre for Theatre Research. In 1971, he staged
Medea at
La MaMa, E.T.C., the experimental theater club in
New York City. Three years later, he directed
Fragments of a Greek Trilogy (
Medea,
The Trojan Women, and
Electra) in Persepolis at the 9th Shiraz Festival of Arts in Iran (1975) with music by Elizabeth Swados, and also at La MaMa.
Career In 1977, he directed Anton Chekhov's
The Cherry Orchard at the
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. The production, starring
Irene Worth as Ranevskaya and
Meryl Streep as Dunyasha, was nominated for a
Tony Award. More recently, Șerban has directed
Sarah Kane's
Cleansed in Romania;
Lucia di Lammermoor at the
Opéra Bastille in Paris; and a popular production of
Hamlet, starring
Liev Schreiber in the title role, at the
Public Theater in New York. For more than two decades, Șerban has been associated with the
American Repertory Theatre in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. At the A.R.T., he has directed
Lysistrata,
The Merchant of Venice,
The Taming of the Shrew,
The King Stag,
Sganarelle,
Three Sisters,
The Juniper Tree,
The Miser,
Twelfth Night,
Sweet Table at the Richelieu, and
Pericles. As a director, Șerban has also worked at the
Circle in the Square Theatre, the
Yale Repertory Theater, the
American Conservatory Theater, the
Metropolitan Opera, the New York City, Seattle and Los Angeles Operas, at the Paris, Geneva, Vienna, and Bologna Opera Houses, the
Welsh National Opera,
Covent Garden,
Théâtre de la Ville, the
Comédie Française, Helsinki's Lilla Teatern, and with the
Shiki Theatre Company in
Tokyo. From 1990 to 1993, he headed the
National Theatre Bucharest. While at Columbia, he has directed the
Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theater Studies, and the M.F.A. Acting program. He has also taught at
Yale University,
Harvard University,
Carnegie Mellon University,
Sarah Lawrence College,
University of California, San Diego, the Paris Conservatoire d'Art Dramatique and the
American Repertory Theater's
Institute for Advanced Theater Training. In 2006, he published his autobiography, written in Romanian. In late 2019, Andrei Șerban resigned from his position at Columbia University, citing pressure on staff to accept teachers and students lacking the required academic standards in the name of political correctness. In an interview with a Romanian TV station, he compared the intransigent leftist atmosphere dominating the American academia to the oppressive one in communist Romania, where artists were told by party functionaries how to think and how to create. ==Honors and awards==