Steal the Sky

John D. Hancock is an American stage and film director, producer and writer. He is perhaps best known for his work on Bang the Drum Slowly. He is the son of Ralph and Ella Mae Rosenthal Hancock. His father was a musician with the NBC Symphony Orchestra in Chicago, Illinois and his mother a school... teacher. Hancock spent his youth between their home in Chicago and their fruit farm in La Porte, Indiana. In high school he was the Assistant Concertmaster of the Chicago Youth Orchestra playing the violin. Hancock graduated from Harvard University. He continued his theatrical studies in Europe with a grant from Harvard including observing Bertolt Brecht's Berliner Ensemble. He made his directorial debut at age twenty-two with the Off-Broadway hit production of Brecht's Man Equals Man. This was followed by Robert Lowell's Endicott and the Red Cross at the American Place Theatre and in 1968 Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Theatre de Lys with sets by Jim Dine. Hancock won the Obie Award for Distinguished Director for the 1967-68 season.
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