Education
Yale School of Drama.
Yale School of Drama.
Several of his dramas involve Jewish identity, cultural alienation, and universal problems of racism. His literary influences come, in part, from August Strindberg and Harold Pinter. In addition to his plays, Havis wrote a novel for children, Albert the Astronomer (Harper & Row, 1979.
).
He edited an anthology for University of Illinois Press, American Political Plays (2001. ). Fifteen Havis plays are published in editions by Broadway Play Publishing Incorporated., Theatre Communications Group, Penguin/Mentor, and University of Illinois. His book Cult Films: Taboo and Transgression ( University Press of America, 2008.
) covers ninety years of cinema.
Southern Illinois University Press published his next edited anthology 2010, American Political Plays after 9/11. His first opera libretto, Lilith (music by Anthony Davis), had its world premiere recital at the Conrad Prebys Music Center, University of California San Diego on December 4, 2009.
The chamber opera, based on his play, highlights Adam"s first wife of supernatural proportion and partly staged in a modern era. His second opera with Anthony Davis on a modern Lear archetype, Lear on the 2nd Floor, had a showcase presentation at Princeton"s Lewis Center for the Arts in March 2012 and produced in March 2013 at Conrad Prebys Music Center, University of California San Diego.
Lilith will have a showcase presentation at the Qualcomm Institute, University of California San Diego November 2015.
Havis has an Master of Fine Arts from Yale Drama School (1980), has headed for many years the Master of Fine Arts playwriting program at University of California, San Diego, and became Provost of Thurgood Marshall College, University of California San Diego in 2006. They have two children.