David Kruh is a former New Yorker and a 1978 graduate of the University of Maryland.  Using his college education to its fullest, David, much to his father's chagrin, became a disc jockey.  After several years at stations in towns too small to mention, he came to Boston to work as an engineer at WRKO-AM and WROR-FM while getting his Masters in Computer Engineering at Boston University. He has also worked full  time as a copywriter, computer programmer, radio producer, radio engineer and, for a few years in the mid-1990s, as a spokesman and web master for the Big Dig.  David has also dabbled in acting and stand-up comedy, but prefers to eat, and so currently works full time as a Marketing Communications Manager for Analog Devices, a semiconductor manufacturer.  He is a member of his local Historic District Commission and, in the spring, David enjoys helping coach his daughter's baseball team.

David's first book, Always Something Doing, Boston's Infamous Scollay Square (Faber and Faber, 1990) was updated in a second edition published by Northeastern University Press in 1999.  "Subtitled 'Boston's Infamous Scollay Square,' this delightful book, now in its second edition, gives the full history, with all the tassels twirling, the sailors swooning, the beer halls filled with guzzlers, and so on. A really fine book about a topic that old-timers, especially, will cherish, but that younger folk can take in as a way of learning about the Boston that's gone," wrote the late David Brudnoy of WBZ radio in Boston.

His second book on Scollay Square was published by Arcadia Publishing in 2004.  Titled Scollay Square, it is filled with 180 images, many of which have never been published before, including extremely rare views backstage at the Old Howard.

New from Rounder Books

Released, in the summer of 2007, FURTHER FENWAY FICTION is the second Red Sox-inspired anthology assembled by editor Adam Patcher.  This new collection of 18 works of fiction devoted the Boston Red Sox contains the new ending to David and Steve Bergman's musical THE CURSE IS REVERSED, one in which the lead character watched his beloved Red Sox win the World Series in 2004.  FFF is a follow-up to FENWAY FICTION, published in 2005, that contains two works by David, one a ten-minute play titled ICE AGE, which is about the collective fate of Ted William's frozen body and head, and an excerpt from David and Steve's musical THE CURSE OF THE BAMBINO.

Also from Rounder Books

David is also the co-author, with his father Louis, of Presidential Landmarks (Hippocrene Press, 1992), which contains a brief personal and political history of all the Presidents, plus a comprehensive description of their birthplaces, homes, libraries, museums.  Presidential Landmarks also contains contains the largest collection of photographs of presidential sites ever published.  The book was sold out, but copies can be special ordered through Amazon.com.

David's columns have appeared in a number of publications including the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston Magazine, Boston Business Journal, and Yankee Magazine, and he is a frequent speaker on a variety of subjects, including the Big Dig, Scollay Square, and the presidents.  (Regarding his Scollay Square presentation, the Boston Globe wrote that "Kruh is full of splendid anecdotes..." and that his is "...a fascinating slide show... ...a trip to the past...") A complete list of speeches, a schedule of upcoming appearances, and contact information can be found hereor by clicking on the right.

His writing for the stage includes a musical titled The Curse of the Bambino* (music by Steven Bergman) which is all about the infamous sale in 1920 of Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees by the Boston Red Sox, and the ensuing frustration by the team.  COTB had its World Premiere in Spring 2001, at Boston’s Lyric Stage, and went on to become the biggest hit in that theater's history.  (Click on the CD cover on the right to access the Curse of the Bambino web site.) His writing for the stage also includes:

Arnold Nawrocki is Dead, a short piece in which two men ruminate over the obituary of the man who perfected the process of individually wrapping cheese slices, premiered at the 2004 Boston Theater Marathon. Resurrection (2005)  Eugene O'Neill once suggested that man should experience a resurrection a week.  How do you suppose mankind would react?  Resurrection is a short play that presents one possibility.  The piece premiered simultaneously in 2005 at both the brown couch theatre in Chicago and Studio Rep of Rhode Island, was presented as part of the 2006 Boston Theater Marathon, and the Curan Theater of New York City's Notes from the Underground one-act festival. The Riverbank Code, a drama for the stage which is based on the true story of the people who in 1916 proved in court that Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare.  Published by the Eldridge Publishing Company in 2003. Good for Nothing (a wild take on the current crop of reality-based TV shows) was produced by several companies before being published by Brooklyn Publishing in 2004. David's plays have been produced at a number of festivals, including Hovey Theater's Summer Shorts in Waltham, ACME Theater's New Works Winter Festival in Maynard, and the Arlington Players. A complete list of short plays - with links to some PDFs - can be found here.

David, director Carmel O'Reilly, and the cast of Sugan Theater's production of "Arnold Nawrocki is dead, performed at the 2004 Boston Theater Marathon.

David's most recently completed work for the stage is a full-length comedy titled I.P.O.  I.P.O. takes place on the last full day of the 1990s, as we follow Gil Bates, who has quit his Harvard scholarship to grab his share of the Internet boom and start a new company (much like the ones that sprouted up along Route 128 during the decade.)  Over the course of this one day, Gil battles with his investor-father, his competitors, his girlfriend, and a myriad of temptations of the 1990s, while his company rises from nothing (we start with an empty stage in the morning) to the height of a media-driven frenzy (mid-day the office is crowded with furniture, reporters, and lawyers) to the inevitable collapse of the company (as the last lines of the play are spoken, a worker is removing the desks and chairs.)  Click HERE to view the PDF.
 

David collaborated, with Arnie Reisman, on PONZI!*, a film script about the infamous Boston swindler who, coincidentally, operated at the exact same time that Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees.   PONZI! placed in the quarter finals of the 2001 Scriptapalooza Screen Writers competition Received honorable mention in the Writer's Network FADE IN contest in 2003. The script is being shopped by Two Rams Entertainment.

David packing them in during a standup gig...

David has also written a novel* and screenplay*, both titled Be Careful What You Wish For...* about the year the Red Sox finally win the World Series and how that affects the lives of several Bostonians. The movie script placed in the quarter finals of Fade-In Magazine's annual screenwriting competition and was a finalist in Screenplay Festival's 2003 competition.