Matthew Spangler

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Rabindranath Tagore's Kingdom of Cards, translated by Suknaya Chakrabarti and adapted by Sukanya Chakrabarti and Matthew Spangler

Opens April 24, 2026

OFFICIAL SITE & TICKETS

Hammer Theatre Center

The Beekeeper of Aleppo national tour of the UK and Ireland (2026)

Adapted for the stage by Nesrin Alrefaai and Matthew Spangler. From the acclaimed novel by Christy Lefteri.

UK Productions

Cowboys and East Indians, co-written by Nina McConigley and Matthew Spangler, recently completed a production run at the Denver Center for Performing Arts.

Official Site and Tickets

Matthew Spangler is a playwright and professor of performance studies at San José State University in the San Francisco Bay Area. He teaches courses in how refugees and asylum-seekers are represented through the performing arts. As a playwright, he specializes in writing plays adapted from novels.
His most widely produced play is an adaptation of The Kite Runner, which he wrote, with generous input from author Khaled Hosseini, in 2006. The British production, which was conceived and produced at the Nottingham Playhouse in 2012, transferred to Broadway in the summer of 2022, featuring longtime collaborators Humaira Ghilzai (script and creative consultant) and Salar Nader (tabla and music design).
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Matthew Spangler awarded the President’s Scholar Award by San Jose State University

An award given to one faculty member a year for outstanding work in scholarship or creative activity (2021).

Interview Here
Matthew Spangler receives the Leslie Irene Coger Award for Live Performance from the National Communication Association (2017)

The nominating committee wrote: “Matthew Spangler’s body of work is distinguished for the deep humanity and ethical sensibility he brings to life on stage and through his incisive scholarship. His work moves across boundaries of nationality, race, and culture to create narratives of compassion and empathy transcending difference.”

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“Spangler’s beautifully crafted adaptation has retained Hosseini’s lyrical language, vivid imagery, and places the story’s integrity on stage. A must-see play.”

– Theatre Mirror, New England’s Live Theatre Guide

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“Matthew Spangler has managed in his adaptation a synthesis which transfers beautifully to the stage.”

– Reviews Gate (U.K.)

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Liverpool Post Arts Awards: Kite Runner Receives Award for Best Theatre Production

“A play that excelled in its script, performances, design and direction. Co-created by the Liverpool and Nottingham Playhouses, the epic production spanned decades, continents and cultures to present a heart-wrenching tale as beautifully told on stage as in the pages of Khaled Hosseini’s best selling novel.”
Arts Fuse, Boston The Kite Runner–Adapting an Epic Story to the Stage

I asked playwright Matthew Spangler why he wanted to create a stage version of a large and challenging book, and how he went about solving the obvious problems…

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Hosseini, adapter Matthew Spangler and director David Ira Goldstein—reveal that all three hope the production will help dispel the myth that Afghanistan is a dustbin of barbarity.

Nowhere in this world does the gap between hospitality and hostility gape wider than in Afghanistan. Khaled Hosseini’s successful first novel, The Kite Runner, is rife with the abuse of innocents over decades in that troubled nation. And yet, separate conversations with the lead creators of the stage version of that story—Hosseini, adapter Matthew Spangler and director David Ira Goldstein—reveal that all three hope the production will help dispel the myth that Afghanistan is a dustbin of barbarity.
American Theatre Magazine, Desert Warmth

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Rabindranath Tagore's Kingdom of Cards, translated by Suknaya Chakrabarti and adapted by Sukanya Chakrabarti and Matthew Spangler

Opens April 24, 2026

Hammer Theatre Center

The Beekeeper of Aleppo national tour of the UK and Ireland (2026)

Adapted for the stage by Nesrin Alrefaai and Matthew Spangler. From the acclaimed novel by Christy Lefteri.

Cowboys and East Indians, co-written by Nina McConigley and Matthew Spangler, recently completed a production run at the Denver Center for Performing Arts.

Bio

Matthew Spangler awarded the President’s Scholar Award by San Jose State University

Matthew Spangler receives the Leslie Irene Coger Award for Live Performance from the National Communication Association (2017)

“Spangler’s beautifully crafted adaptation has retained Hosseini’s lyrical language, vivid imagery, and places the story’s integrity on stage. A must-see play.”

“Matthew Spangler has managed in his adaptation a synthesis which transfers beautifully to the stage.”

Liverpool Post Arts Awards: Kite Runner Receives Award for Best Theatre Production

Arts Fuse, Boston The Kite Runner–Adapting an Epic Story to the Stage

Hosseini, adapter Matthew Spangler and director David Ira Goldstein—reveal that all three hope the production will help dispel the myth that Afghanistan is a dustbin of barbarity.

@spanglerSF