Gelman received his BFA in theatre from Birmingham-Southern College (1982) and his MFA in Directing from Boston University (1985) He also spends a month at the University of Illinois at a Directing Colloquium conducted by Edwin Sherin, Arvin Brown, John Reich, Garland Wright, Clifford Williams, Vinnette Carroll, and Gerald Freedman.
The two later worked on Master and Margarita at American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge and Lulu at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
After a number of years freelancing as director and translator, he accepted a position of Head of Directing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (1991), where he stayed until 1994.
At the Organic, he has directed his own adaptations of The $30,000 Bequest by Mark Twain, Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville, and Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent.
He also directed Eugène Ionesco's Man with Bags, Friedrich Dürrenmatt's Play Strindberg, and Shimizu Kunio's The Dressing Room.