Jules Irving (born Julius Israel; April 13, 1925 – July 28, 1979) was an American director, educator, producer and actor, who in the 1950s co-founded the San Francisco Actor's Workshop. When the Actor's Workshop closed in 1966, Irving moved to New York City and became the first Producing Director of the Repertory Company of the Vivian Beaumont Theater of Lincoln Center.

In 1955, the Actor's Workshop was the first West Coast theater to sign an Equity "Off-Broadway" contract. Irving had started the Workshop with fellow New Yorker Herbert Blau, whom he knew from undergraduate days at New York University and then during graduate study at Stanford University. Both men were professors at San Francisco State, with Irving serving in the Drama department and Blau in English.^{[citation needed]}

He was active in school shows and made his Broadway debut at the age of thirteen in George S. Kaufman's The American Way. He joined the army in 1943, serving in the infantry during the Battle of the Bulge and as a Russian translator when his unit met Soviet forces. After V-E Day, he transferred to Special Services and had the opportunity to hone his theater managerial skills as he organized camp shows under Joshua Logan.

The Actor's Workshop was established January 16, 1952 in a loft above a judo academy on Divisadero Street in San Francisco and remained until its formal demise in 1966. The Actor's Workshop set new standards as a pioneer of resident professional art theater in the United States.

Among those present in 1952 for a "study group" or "workshop" were Irving, Blau, their wives (Priscilla Pointer and Beatrice Manley); Hal J. Todd, who had been at Stanford with Irving and Blau; Richard Glyer, an instructor at San Francisco State University; Paul Cox, an aspiring playwright; and S.F. State student Dan Whiteside.

Irving guided the theater's finances and led primary day-by-day operations of the company's growth to its Elgin Street playhouse and then to offices on Folsom Street and two year-round theaters, the Encore and the Marines' Memorial. A major transition occurred in 1956 when the Workshop was evicted from Elgin Street to make room for a new freeway. The company had the option to renew its lease on the Marines' Memorial Theater but no money. A young Canadian, Alan Mandell, who as a volunteer Business Manager (and de facto chief executive with Irving) helped inaugurate the first subscription season for the Actor's Workshop.

Irving and Blau were insistent idealists who developed the Workshop in the tradition of the Group Theatre of the 1930s; they and key company members were dedicated to principles of social responsibility and ensemble artistry. The troupe's repertoire focused initially on Miller and other modern American writers, such as Odets, O'Neill, and Tennessee Williams, but soon expanded to the contemporary world dramas of Samuel Beckett, Brecht, Genet, John Osborne, Yukio Mishima, and Harold Pinter.

Respected as an actor as well as director, Irving played major roles, including Proctor in The Crucible and Happy in Death of a Salesman (which he also directed) in the Workshop's productions of Arthur Miller plays. When the Workshop produced the west coast premiere of Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Irving was the loquacious servant, Lucky.