Jeff Cohen is an American theater director, playwright and producer. Cohen grew up in Baltimore, Maryland partially in Mt. Washington with his step-father Josh Fendell and with his father Stanley in a house across from Druid Hill Park in the Liberty Heights neighborhood of Baltimore, the setting for his play, Men of Clay.. He graduated from Baltimore Friends School in 1975 before attending New York University where he studied acting with the late Stella Adler. He has taught at such institutions as Johns Hopkins University, California Institute of the Arts and Pace University. He is perhaps best known for The Tribeca Playhouse Stage Door Canteen, his 10-week response to the attacks of 9/11 that brought Broadway, television and music stars to Ground Zero to 'entertain the troops' - the rescue and recovery workers at the World Trade Center site. Performers included Colin Quinn, S. Epatha Merkerson, Mario Cantone, Sandy Duncan, Kate Shindle, Daisy Eagan, Lea DeLaria, Kristen Chenoweth and many others.
Career
With his friend Jimmy Burke, Cohen is a partner in the theater, film and television production company Burke Cohen Entertainment, LLC. Among their productions are the upcoming Broadway musical about Patsy Cline and the film of the Off Broadway production of his play The Soap Myth which has been seen nationally on PBS and is the first American production on the British website Digital Theatre. He was the founder and artistic director of Dog Run Repertory Company, The Tribeca Playhouse, the Worth Street Theater Company, and The RAPP Arts Center where he produced and directed over fifty productions that have won Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, Obie and Outer Critics awards. Cohen plays include The Soap Myth, The Man Who Ate Michael Rockefeller adapted from the short story by Christopher Stokes, Men Of Clay, and adaptations of Chekhov including The Seagull: The Hamptons,, Uncle Jack. Award-winning and notable Cohen productions include Four by Christopher Shinn, the revival of The Normal Heart, The Mystery of Attraction, by Marlene Meyer, The Moonlight Room,, and The Tribeca Playhouse Stage Door Canteen.
