Steven Carl McCasland

STEVEN CARL McCASLAND is the founder and Artistic Director of The Beautiful Soup Theater Collective, for which he has directed Lift, Rags, Moose Murders, Yentl, A Doll's Life, Alice Au Pays Des Merveilles, Twelfth Night, Crossing Brooklyn and more. He also directed the world premiere of his plays neat & tidy, BLACK [Billy Learns About Captain Kirk] and BLUE: a fable. Beautiful Soup was founded in the summer of 2010. Steven received his Bachelor in Arts for Directing from Pace University.

McCasland's revivals of Rags and A Doll's Life featured heavily revised librettos, painstakingly put together using many lost drafts. The end results were comprehensive looks at long-troubled musicals in rare New York revivals.

In the spring of 2006, he founded Group Therapy Productions, the first student-run production company on campus. He produced and directed over 10 theatrical productions during his four years at Pace University, including an outdoor production of A Midsummer Night's Dream in the school's courtyard. Other productions: A Streetcar Named Desire, Dog Sees God, Death of a Salesman, Antigone, Medea, Falsettos, Proof, The Laramie Project and The Diary of Anne Frank.

In 2009, Steven was commissioned to adapt poet Jack Wiler's anthologies into a solo performance about Wiler's struggle with HIV. That play, Fun Being Me, was workshopped with Jack in the title role before his passing in 2009. His other plays, When I'm 64, Hope & Glory, The Tip, Opheliacs Anonymous, Fifth Position, Blue, Pulchritudinous (Huntington Award in Playwriting - First Place), neat & tidy and Billy Learns About Captain Kirk have all received productions regionally and in Manhattan.

A classically trained pianist, Steven's musical direction and conducting credits include Falsettos, The Wizard of Oz, Aida, Godspell, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Imagine That, The Secret Garden and You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

His acting credits include Moose Murders (Howie Keene), Hard Times (Thomas Gradgrind), Billy Bibbit in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, The Hot L Baltimore (Paul Granger III), Group Therapy's inaugural production of Proof (Robert), Ubu Rex (Boogerlas), The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade (Coulmier), Johnny Got His Gun (Joe Bonham), a crazed voice in Betty's Summer Vacation, Little Shop of Horrors (Mr. Mushnik) and Into the Woods (twice! - Jack and The Baker).

In June of 2011, Steven premiered his original adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Setting Wonderland in the heart of Paris, he also directed and was featured in the cast as the Mock Turtle. After its one week workshop, Alice Au Pays Des Merveilles was picked up for an extended run at The SoHo Playhouse through September. His play neat & tidy made a splash on the Bowery in May of 2012, with critics hailing McCasland as a new Thornton Wilder and the play as one of the Top Dramatic Plays of the year.

After critically acclaimed workshops of Steven's plays Little Wars and What Was Lost in 2014, Beautiful Soup partnered with The Clarion Theatre to present five of his plays in repertory. Those five plays began on May 7th, 2015 and ran through the end of the month. Also featured in rep were 28 Marchant Avenue, Der Kanarienvogel (The Canary) and a revival of neat & tidy. His writing has been acclaimed by New York critics as "brilliant", "riveting", "mesmerizing" and "extraordinary".

While not at the theater, Steven maintains life as a private vocal and acting coaching, prepping New York actors on new material and for upcoming auditions. He is also the Events and Social Media Manager for New York's historic Drama Book Shop.