David Beaird

Born in Shreveport, Louisiana on August 19, 1952, David was the third child of Jack Gray Beaird Sr. and Mary Jane Hunter. He was a graduate of Chicago's Goodman School of Drama. In Chicago, he began his professional career as an actor, playwright, director, and acting coach that spanned four decades. At 19, David won acclaim for his role in "Look Homeward, Angel" as the character Eugene Gant. The Chicago Tribune called him, "a young man who will one day be a consummate and famous actor." After a number of successful acting roles, he founded the Wisdom Bridge Theatre in 1974 on a shoestring budget. The theatre's name was inspired by a painting whose subtitle read: "The bridge to wisdom is in the continual asking of questions." This was David's method. Using his plays to ask big questions, David built Wisdom Bridge into a critically-acclaimed avant-garde theatre, with innovative stagings of "Cyrano de Bergerac" and "Twelfth Night". There he also developed one of his original plays, "Dig