Michael Rudman is an American-born theatre director who has worked extensively in Britain. He graduated from Oberlin College cum laude in Government, and in 1964 he received an MA in English Language and Literature at St Edmund Hall, Oxford. Whilst a student at Oxford, he was the President of the Oxford University Dramatic Society.

Over the course of three decades he has held posts at the Nottingham Playhouse and been artistic director at regional and fringe theatres, including the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, the Hampstead Theatre, Chichester Festival Theatre and Sheffield Theatres. In 1978 he was invited to join the National Theatre by Sir Peter Hall, and was the Director of the Lyttleton Theatre from 1979 to 1982.