Ira David Wood III is an American actor, author, singer, theater director and playwright.
Background
Wood was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, and was raised in the Enfield area of Halifax County, North Carolina. He is a son of Betty Lee (Winstead), a nurse, and Ira David Wood, Junior. He is a graduate of The North Carolina School of the Arts, having attended between 1965 and 1970.
Education
University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
Career
He is the Executive Director of Theatre in the Park, a community theatre company in Raleigh, North Carolina. Wood mainly works in live theatre, but he has also made appearances in a few motion pictures and on television He has also been a guest artist on numerous occasions with the North Carolina Symphony, and he has also appeared with Andre Watts and the National Symphony Orchestra at The Kennedy Center.
He wrote and directed the Opening Ceremonies for the United States. Olympic Festival in 1987 – the largest single athletic event in the history of North Carolina.
Following extensive work in developing a chronology of the John F. Kennedy Assassination in preparation for a theatrical production, he is listed as a contributing writer for the 2000 book Murder in Dealey Plaza. Wood is best known for conceiving, producing and headlining (as Scrooge) a popular musical comedy adaptation of that has been performed annually in Raleigh—and, more recently, in nearby Durham—since 1974.
His is acknowledged as one of the earliest adaptations of the venerable Christmas classic for the theatre and one of the first adaptations of any type that featured a comic element. The local newspaper, the News & Observer has called it "‘one of the most successful shows in North Carolina theater history".
The production has toured internationally twice and has been shown to a total audience of more than one million people.