[1][2] A member of the 1925 class of Amherst College, Canfield took a teaching job there in 1927, eventually becoming Stanley King Professor of dramatic arts and, from 1938, director of the college's Kirby Memorial Theater.
[3] At Yale, he produced the premieres of several major plays, including Archibald MacLeish's Pulitzer-winning J.B., (which was chosen by the U.S. State Department to represent American university theater at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair)[4] and staged revivals at Yale and off-Broadway, such as Stephen Vincent Benét's dramatic poem, John Brown's Body.
Unusually for a professor of his era, his love of theater led him to accept regular professional directing work in summers and on sabbatical while maintaining a full academic career.
Among other assignments, he directed the 1949 WNBW production of Julius Caesar produced by his Amherst Masquers to open the Folger Shakespeare Library Theater in Washington, D.C.[6] From July to September 1949, as a pioneer in the live direction of television drama, he produced a series of eight live half-hour dramas on NBC, featuring actors in short plays by Thornton Wilder and Edna St. Vincent Millay.
He produced live TV performances of Hedda Gabler, Richard III, Othello, The Rivals and Uncle Vanya.