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514:. He created the college's MFA program in playwriting, which he would run until his retirement from CUNY in the late 1990s. In the roughly thirty years he spent at Brooklyn College, he balanced his teaching career with directing professional and student productions and teaching theatre workshops. He received the Obie Award for Distinguished Direction in 1973 when he oversaw the American Place Theatre's production of
325:. Malina directed the production, Beck designed it, while Gelber was part of casting, directing rehearsals, and selling tickets. Opening in July 1959, the play was then controversial. Several theatre critics, particularly those writing for the daily newspapers, objected to the play's graphic depiction of
474:, when the Cold War was going strong. This interpretation sparked large and sometimes violent protests by Cuban exiles and others against the production, and the play ended its run after only one night. He appears as himself in the 1968 Cuban film
466:. This work drew upon his travels as a journalist in Cuba during the 1950s, along with more recent visits in 1964 and 1967. He portrayed a middle-class family's experience of the 1959 revolution. Produced at
255:, the play was translated into five languages and produced in ten nations. Gelber continued to work and write in New York, where he also taught writing, directing and drama as a professor, chiefly at
410:, opened at the Living Theatre in 1961, but it was the last of Gelber's works produced by the company. Not long after that production, the company moved overseas. In 1963 the
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Gelber never achieved the same success with his later plays, but he enjoyed a long and active career writing, directing, and teaching drama. His second play,
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became the Living
Theatre's first great success. It brought publicity to both Gelber and the Living Theatre as significant in American theatre. It won the
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283:, the first of three sons of Molly (Singer) and Harold Gelber, a Jewish American couple of Russian and Romanian descent. Harold was a
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In San
Francisco, Gelber met Carol Westenberg, and they married on December 23, 1957, in New York City. They had two children.
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has since been translated into five languages and performed in ten countries, as well as throughout the United States. The
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said after his death. "It was exciting, dangerous, instructive and terrifying - all things theater should be."
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and its performance style. The play also attracted prominent supporters, such as the drama critics
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418:(which it renewed three years later) to support his writing, and in 1964 he published his novel
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245:(April 12, 1932 – May 9, 2003) was an American playwright best known for his 1959 drama
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of drama. In 1968 he completed the script for, and directed a production of, his fourth play
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New York
University's Fales Library and Special Collections Guide to the Jack Gelber Papers
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Last
Frontier Playwright Award in recognition of his lifetime of achievements in theatre.
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in 1953, Gelber traveled to San
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Last
Frontier Playwright Award in recognition of his lifetime of achievements in theatre
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Gelber returned to creating original plays, directing a 1976 production of his drama
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soon eafter. Gelber earned his first directing credit in the 1966 production of
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This was not long after Gelber died on May 9, 2003, in New York, due to
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in the role of Leach) of the 1959–1960 season. Gelber also received the
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In the mid-part of the decade, he became an adjunct professor at the
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In New York, Gelber first worked as a mimeograph operator at the
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in 1975, was an adaptation of Franz Xaver Kroetz' 1971 play
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Festival in Paris. Ultimately the Living
Theatre performed
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in 1980. It was eight years before he had his tenth play,
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Gelber's writing was also supported by a grant from the
863:"Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" January 30, 1968
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for outstanding achievement in the off-Broadway theatre
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MEL GUSSOW, "Jack Gelber, 71, 'Connection' Playwright"
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a total of 722 times in the first years of the 1960s.
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of the play, produced by Lewis Allen and directed by
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for Best New Play, Best
Production, and Best Actor (
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818:1973, Obie Award for Distinguished Direction, for
808:for Best New Play, Best Production, and Best Actor
267:program in playwriting. In 1999 he received the
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760:Short stories, published in periodicals such as
307:headquarters. He began writing his first play,
425:In 1965 he became writer-in-residence at the
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53:Learn how and when to remove these messages
983:Jewish American dramatists and playwrights
948:American people of Romanian-Jewish descent
953:American people of Russian-Jewish descent
230:Learn how and when to remove this message
212:Learn how and when to remove this message
150:Learn how and when to remove this message
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621:"I was so affected and energized by
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851:"Jack Gelber Biography (1932-)"
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737:(2000), first produced in 2003
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384:Théâtre des Nations
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691:Franz Xaver Kroetz
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727:(1998) and
489:Vietnam War
448:The Kitchen
361:Obie Awards
345:, director
337:, the poet
335:Henry Hewes
319:Julian Beck
243:Jack Gelber
927:Categories
837:References
780:The Nation
695:Stallerhof
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416:fellowship
379:Grand Prix
293:Journalism
202:April 2012
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190:verifying
45:talk page
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184:Please
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