Reimagining American Theatre - Softcover

Brustein, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0809080583 ISBN 13: 9780809080588

Publisher: Hill and Wang, 2003

Synopsis

Wide-ranging, discerning essays and reviews in which Mr. Brustein finds that the theatre has been quietly reinventing the nature of its art.

About this title

About the Author:

Robert Sanford Brustein (born April 21, 1927 in New York City) is an American theatrical critic, producer, playwright and educator. He founded both Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut and the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he remains a Creative Consultant, and has been the theatre critic for The New Republic since 1959. He comments on politics for the Huffington Post.

Brustein is a Senior Research Fellow at Harvard University and a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Suffolk University in Boston. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1999 and in 2002 was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame. In 2003 he served as a Senior Fellow with the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University, and in 2004 and 2005 was a senior fellow at the National Endowment for the Arts Arts Journalism Institute in Theatre and Musical Theatre at the University of Southern California.

Robert Brustein is married to Doreen Beinart, and has one son, Daniel Brustein, and two stepchildren, Peter Beinart and Jean Beinart Stern.

From Publishers Weekly:

In this collection of reviews and essays, most reprinted from the New Republic , the founder and artistic director of the American Repertory Theatre considers the state of American theater in the 1980s. Despite what he considers the artistic sterility of Broadway and the economic problems afflicting all theaters, he believes that "we are in a period of theatrical renewal and change," finding American playwrights, directors and actors to be the artistic equals of their highly praised English colleagues. Brustein's passion for the theater informs every sentence: his reviews make absorbing reading whether or not one has seen the productions; the foreword and three introductory essays are compelling calls to honor and sustain creative effort in the theater. The author makes no secret of his prejudices. He prefers serious drama to musical comedy, regional theaters to Broadway, Joseph Papp's risk-taking New York Shakespeare Festival to the cautious Lincoln Center management. It's not necessary to share Brustein's opinions to enjoy his essays, which are provocative, challenging and alive with the conviction that "a country without a theater is a country without a soul."
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hill and Wang
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0809080583
• ISBN 13: 9780809080588
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 307