Gwen Arner

Gwen Arner (born 1936 or 1937) is an American director and actress. She co-founded the Los Angeles Actors' Theatre and directed stage productions there, as well as at the Mark Taper Forum and in the Midwestern United States. She also directed episodes of The Waltons, Dallas, Falcon Crest, and Dynasty. Biography Gwen Arner was born in 1936 or 1937 in Omaha, Nebraska, and later raised there. Having become interested in acting during her adolescence, she studied theater at the University of Michigan, gaining her bachelor's and master's degrees in the field. After abandoning her initial pursuit for a doctoral degree in favor of stage performance work, she made her acting debut at the Mark Taper Forum and later co-founded the Los Angeles Actors' Theatre (LAAT), where she marked her directorial debut. In 1970, she married Donald Moffat, who was one of the LAAT's co-founders; they would remain married until his death on December 20, 2018. Among her LAAT directing credits are productions of The Kitchen and Waiting for Godot, the latter which was shown at Great Performances on PBS in 1977. Writing for King Features Syndicate, Charles Witbeck praised her Waiting for Godot production as a "lively, joyful version" of the original, saying that "word reached New York that Los Angeles had a Beckett smasher, the "definitive Godot" in the words of an influential critic." Dana Elcar, who starred in the production, also recalled that Arner had "managed the transition without losing touch". Two of her Mark Taper Forum productions, The Vienna Notes (1979) and Passion Play (1984), won the Drama-Logue Award for Outstanding Direction. Passion Play was also nominated for Best Direction at the 1984 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards. After Passion Play, she stopped doing stage direction work in Los Angeles for a while, preferring work in television films for residency flexibility reasons.