John Collins (born October 17, 1969 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina) is an American experimental theatre director and designer. He is the founder and artistic director of Elevator Repair Service (ERS) and has directed or co-directed all of its productions since 1991. Most notable among his work with ERS is Gatz, a verbatim performance of the entire text of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Between 1991 and 2006, Collins worked as a sound and lighting designer, primarily designing sound for The Wooster Group from 1993 to 2006. Early life and education Collins was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and grew up in Vidalia, Georgia. Collins attended Duke University in 1987-88 before transferring to Yale in 1989. He graduated cum laude with a combined degree in English and Theater Studies from Yale University in 1991. At Yale, he met future long-term collaborators and ERS co-founders including novelist James Hannaham, playwright/performer Rinne Groff, writer/producer Steve Bodow, choreographer Katherine Profeta, and performers Susie Sokol and Leo Marks. Early Work with ERS Collins — along with Hannaham, Groff, Profeta, Colleen Werthmann, and Bradley Glenn — formed Elevator Repair Service in the fall of 1991. Shortly thereafter, they were joined by Steve Bodow, who also served as co-Artistic Director until 2002 before joining the writing staff of The Daily Show. The ensemble's first production was a version of Tristan Tzara's The First Celestial Adventure of Mr. Antipyrine, Fire Extinguisher. Collins's early work with ERS was presented at downtown New York City venues such as Nada, Here Arts Center, The Ontological at St. Mark's Church, and Performance Space 122. The company's first original piece to tour Europe was Cab Legs (directed by Collins with Steve Bodow) an original work by the ensemble based loosely on a Tennessee Williams play and infused with choreography based on Bollywood dancing and Max Fleischer cartoons. Gatz Collins's best-known work with ERS is Gatz, an 8-hour performance of the entire text of The Great Gatsby. Work on the production began in 1999, but halted after ERS could not obtain performance rights to the book. In June 2004, Collins put together a 3-hour workshop performance of the first half of the novel at Brooklyn's Collapsible Hole venue. In the fall of 2004, Collins approached the Fitzgerald Estate a second time to attempt to secure rights for a full production of Gatz, which by that time had incorporated the entire text