David Bassuk

Professor of Acting

  • LIVE PERFORMANCE & INTERACTIVE MEDIA
  • DIRECTING FOR STAGE
  • TRANSMEDIA STORYTELLING
  • GAMEPLAY & PERFORMANCE
  • IMMERSIVE STORYWORLDS
  • ADAPTATION OF LITERATURE INTO PERFORMANCE

Teaching explores the integration of transmedia storytelling, gameplay, and immersive design into teaching stage directing, scriptwriting, and experimental performance. He holds an M.F.A. from Southern Methodist University. Previously, he has taught at Temple University, Penn State, and Arcadia University before coming to Purchase College in 2003 to serve as the Dean of Theater Arts & Film in 2003 before returning to teaching full-time in 2007. 

Bassuk specializes in exploring spatial storytelling in both live and virtual settings, focusing on developing meaningful and engaging interactions between designers and participants using layers of technology in performances and theme parks.

Served as Creative Director for the “Magical Mystery Tree” an immersive theater theme park in the Evergrande Group’s development Ocean Flower Island which is currently under construction in Hainan, China.  He served as Artistic Director of Novel Stages Theater Company and the Arcadia Shakespeare Festival in Philadelphia as well as co-Artistic Director of Ark Theater Company in Los Angeles. Previous artistic administrative positions include positions at the National Endowment for the Arts, Lincoln Center Theater, American Place Theater, and the Pew Foundation

He is a director of many productions, including Cat’s Cradle a musical by Kurt Vonnegut, Nadine Gordimer’s July’s People, Chaim Potok’s The ChosenOff-Broadway, and American Camera at Lincoln Center. Recent Purchase Repertory productions include last year’s Earthquakes in London as well as past years: The Maids, Tales from the Vienna Woods, Master and Margarita, Hedda Gabler, Peer Gynt, Lady Windermere’s Fan, The Cherry Orchard, and most recently stage production of Dante’s Inferno at the Civic Theater in Dublin, Ireland

As a Professor of Acting in the Conservatory of Theater Arts at Purchase College, SUNY, School of the Arts, Bassuk, mentors students in stage directing, creative writing, and experimental performance design. As the Creative Director of White Horse Immersive in Hangzhou, China, Bassuk has developed several large projects with Alibaba and Tencent’s Animation Studio. As Creative Director of start-up Oneirocom, Bassuk is designing an immersive theater experience incorporating Google’s multi-modal Gemini AI.

Bassuk was a Fulbright Scholar teaching immersive narrative and game design at the University of Applied Sciences in Salzburg, Austria. Other past projects include leading a three-year project with UNAMI, The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq. The project “Iraqi Futures 2050,” played out across ten cities in Iraq, aimed at building youth motivation toward the issue of water scarcity; the project launched was both live on locations and woven into an online Simulation Game designed in Web3 intended as a metaverse strategy to expand the project across Iraq over many years.

A consultant on strategies for devising and developing curriculum and cultural production in the arts, entertainment, and tourism, as well as other creative industries, offering expertise in design methods for collaboration and co-creation.




Research Interests

Catching the Next Wave Podcast 

Agnieszka Szóstek, Łukasz Szóstek

S3.E4. David Bassuk. The Ultimate Way of Engaging The Audience.

In this incredible conversation we investigate the world of transmedia, gameplay and immersiveness as the future of engaging with the audience before, during and after an event. Last but not least, we look into how theater and play has changed over time and deliberate about its future.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4i00NF5hrxA0y0UYcCac9M

Representative Courses

  • Worldbuilding for Fiction
  • Future Stories
  • Live Performance & Interactive Media
  • Rehearsal & Performance
  • Advanced Directing for the Stage
  • Adaptation of Literature into Performance 
  • Transmedia & Performance
  • Immersive Storyworlds
  • Gameplay & Performance