Shlemiel the First (1997)

1927 – 2023

As founding director of the Yale Repertory and American Repertory Theaters, Robert Brustein supervised well over two hundred productions, acting in eight and directing twelve. He wrote eleven adaptations for the American Repertory Theater and was the author of many books on theater and society. Mr. Brustein also served for twenty years as director of the Loeb Drama Center, was a Professor in Harvard’s English Department, was a Senior Research Fellow at Harvard University, and drama critic for The New Republic. He was inducted as a member in to the American Theatre Hall of Fame, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and received numerous awards including the George Polk Award in Journalism, the Commonwealth (Massachusetts) Award for Organizational Leadership, and the Eugene O’Neill Foundation’s Tao House Award for serving the American theater with distinction, and the National Medal of the Arts.

At A.R.T., his produciton of Six Characters in Search of an Author won the Boston Theatre Award for Best Production of 1996. His play Demons, which was broadcast on WGBH radio in 1993, had its stage world premiere as part of the A.R.T. New Stages. His play Nobody Dies on Friday was given its world premiere in the same series and was presented at the Singapore Festival of Arts and the Pushkin Theatre in Moscow. His play Spring Forward, Fall Back was performed in 2006 at Theater J in Washington, D.C., and at the Vineyard Playhouse; The English Channel was produced in 2007 in Boston and at the Vineyard Playhouse, and played at the Abingdon Theatre in the fall of 2008, receiving a nomination for a Pulitzer Prize.

Brustein also wrote Shlemiel the First, based on the stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer and set to traditional klezmer music, which was directed and choreographed by David Gordon. After the original presentation in 1994 at A.R.T. and in Philadelphia at the American Music Theatre Festival, which co-produced the show, Shlemiel the First was revived several times in Cambridge and subsequently played at the Lincoln Center Serious Fun Festival, the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, and toured theaters in Florida and in Stamford, Connecticut. The play has also been produced at Theater J in Washington, DC. His short plays Poker Face, Chekhov on Ice, Divestiture, AnchorBimbo, Noises, Terrorist Skit, Airport Hell, Beachman’s Last Poetry Reading, and Enter William Shakespeare were all presented by the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. Brustein was also the author of Doctor Hippocrates Is Out: Please Leave a Message, an anthology of theatrical and cinematic satire on medicine and physicians, commissioned by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement for its 2008 convention in Nashville.

Brustein served as a Professor of English at Harvard University, Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Suffolk University in Boston, drama critic for The New Republic, and former dean of the Yale School of Drama. 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.

He was the Founding Director of the Yale Repertory Theatre and the American Repertory Theater and served for twenty years as director of the Loeb Drama Center, where he founded the American Repertory Theater Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University. He retired from the artistic directorship of A.R.T. in 2002 and subsequently served as Founding Director and Creative Consultant.

During his tenure at A.R.T., Brustein wrote eleven adaptations, including Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck, The Master Builder, and When We Dead Awaken, the last directed by Robert Wilson; Three Farces and a Funeral, adapted from the works and life of Anton Chekhov; Luigi Pirandello’s Enrico IV; and Brustein’s final production at A.R.T., Lysistrata by Aristophanes, directed by Andrei Serban. He also directed numerous adaptations while at A.R.T. including a Pirandello trilogy: Six Characters in Search of an Author, which won the Boston Theatre Award for Best Production of 1996, Right You Are (If You Think You Are) and Tonight We Improvise; as well as Ibsen’s Ghosts, Strindberg’s The Father, and Thomas Middleton’s The Changeling.

Over the course of his long career as director, playwright, and teacher, he participated in the artistic development of such theater artists as Meryl Streep, Christopher Durang, Christopher Walken, Cherry Jones, Ted Talley, Michael Feingold, Sigourney Weaver, James Naughton, Mark Linn-Baker, Henry Winkler, James Lapine, Tony Shalhoub, Tommy Derrah, Rocco Landesman, Linda Lavin, Michael Yearga, William Ivey Long, Derek Maclane, Steve Zahn, Peter Sellars, Santo Loquasto, Tom Moore, Albert Innaurato, and many others.

Mr. Brustein was the recipient of many distinguished awards, including:

• Fulbright Fellowship to the University of Nottingham
• John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship
• Twice winner of the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism
• George Polk Award for Journalism (Criticism)
• The 2nd Elliot Norton Award For Professional Excellence in Boston Theatre (formerly the Norton Prize), presented by the Boston Theatre District Association
• New England Theatre Conference’s Major Award for outstanding creative achievement in the American theatre
• American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts
• Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters
• Association for Theatre in Higher Education Career Achievement Award for Professional Theatre
• The Commonwealth Award for Organizational Leadership
• Inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame
• United States Institute for Theatre Technology Lifetime Achievement Award
• National Corporate Theatre Fund Chairman’s Award for Achievement in Theatre
• Gann Academy Award for Excellence in the Performing Arts
• Eugene O’Neill Foundation’s Tao House Award for serving the American theatre with distinction
• National Medal of the Arts
• Players Club Hall of Fame

Arnold Weinstein (co-lyricist of Punch and Judy Get Divorced) was lyricist of the American Repertory Theater's world premiere production of Shlemiel the First. His current projects include an adaptation of A View from the Bridge with Arthur Miller and William Bolcom for Lyric Opera of Chicago and the preparation of a Story Theater version of Wind in the Willows for the Mark Taper Forum. His recent projects include Cabaret Songs, published by E. B. Marks, and a collaboration with Robert Altman on the libretto for William Bolcom's opera McTeague for the Lyric Opera of Chicago. With Mr. Bolcom he also collaborated on Dynamite Tonight! and Casino Paradise. Mr. Weinstein has collaborated with artists Larry Rivers, Andy Warhol, Howard Kanovitz, and Marisol, and his plays include the award-winning Red Eye of Love and Ovid's Metamorphoses, which had its premiere at the Yale Repertory Theatre in 1969 and was subsequently presented on Broadway. Mr. Weinstein also wrote the Story Theater series for television. What Did I Do? The Unauthorized Autobiography, his collaboration with Larry Rivers, has just been published by Harper Collins.

David Gordon (director, choreographer, and co-writer of Punch and Judy Get Divorced) performed in the companies of James Waring and Yvonne Rainer in the 1960s, and in the 1970s he was a founding member of the improvisational group the Grand Union. In 1971 he formed the Pick Up Performance Company (incorporated in 1978 as a non-profit organization), which helps to support and administer his work in live performance and media. He is a Guggenheim Fellow (1981 and 1987) and has been a panelist and chairman of the dance program panel of the NEA. His video work has appeared on Great Performances, Alive TV, the BBC, and Channel 4/Great Britain. The Mysteries and What's So Funny?, written and directed by Gordon with music by Philip Glass and visual design by Red Grooms, was awarded a Bessie Award and an Obie Award. The script was published in Grove New American Theater. Recently Gordon collaborated with Ain Gordon on The Family Business, which premiered at Dance Theater Workshop in New York City in February 1994, received an Obie Award, and was presented at New York Theatre Workshop and at the Mark Taper Forum in 1995. They collaborated again on the text for Punch and Judy Get Divorced, which premiered at the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia in May. He directed and choreographed the original production of Shlemiel the First for the American Repertory Theater and the American Music Theater Festival, as well as the national tours of the show. He received a National Theatre Artist Residency Grant (funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by TCG) to work with the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, and he directed and choreographed The Firebugs by Max Frisch for their mainstage in 1995. He is currently working with Ain Gordon on a commission from the Mark Taper Forum.

Robert Israel's work at the American Repertory Theater has included designs for Tartuffe, Shlemiel the First, and Orphée. He has designed sets and costumes for over sixty productions in opera houses worldwide, and has collaborated with Philip Glass on The Voyage, Satyagraha, and Akhnaten. Recent projects include The Fiery Angel for Opera de Paris (Bastille) and the Netherlands Opera, Die Zauberflöte for Glimmerglass Festival and the National Opera of Canada, Don Giovanni for Los Angeles Opera, Katja Kabanova for the Metropolitan Opera, Don Giovanni for Florence Opera, Aida and the Ring cycle for Seattle Opera, Parsifal for Deutsche Opera, Berlin, and Alice in Wonderland for the National Theatre, London. Mr. Israel's work has been exhibited at numerous museums and galleries, including the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Milwaukee Art Center, and Foundation Maeght in St. Paul de Vence, France.

Catherine Zuber has created the costumes for Richard II, The Doctor's Dilemma, and over forty other A.R.T. productions including Three Farces and a Funeral, Antigone, Loot, The Idiots Karamazov, Ivanov, Phaedra, The Merchant of Venice, Valparaiso, The Imaginary Invalid, The Taming of the Shrew, Peter Pan and Wendy, The Bacchae, Man and Superman, The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, Woyzeck, The Wild Duck, The Naked Eye, Long Day's Journey Into Night, Tartuffe, Ubu Rock, Waiting for Godot, The Oresteia, Shlemiel the First, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, A Touch of the Poet, What the Butler Saw, The Cherry Orchard, and Orphée. Ms. Zuber's credits include work at Lincoln Center, The Joseph Papp Public Theater, Goodman Theatre, The Guthrie Theater, Mark Taper Forum, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Hartford Stage Company, La Jolla Playhouse, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Houston Grand Opera, and Glimmerglass Opera, among others. Her Broadway credits include The Triumph of Love (Connecticut Critics Circle Award and Drama Desk nomination), Ivanov (Drama Desk nomination), The Sound of Music, Twelfth Night, The Red Shoes, London Assurance, The Rose Tattoo, and Philadelphia Here I Come. Ms. Zuber was the recipient of the 1997 Obie Award for sustained achievement in design. She is the costume designer for La Fête des Vignerons de 1999, the massive Festival of the Winegrowers in Vevey, Switzerland.

Christopher Walker has composed music and designed sound for We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay!, Phaedra, Beckett Trio: Eh Joe, Ghost Trio, and Nacht und Traüme, and An Evening of Beckett, and designed sound for The King Stag, Loot, The Idiots Karamazov, Ivanov, The Cripple of Inishmaan, Charlie in the House of Rue, The Merchant of Venice, Valparaiso, The Taming of the Shrew, The Bacchae, The Wild Duck, Woyzeck, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Wild Duck, Alice in Bed, Slaughter City, Buried Child, Ubu Rock, The Threepenny Opera, The Accident, Demons, Waiting for Godot, The Oresteia, Hot 'n' Throbbing, The America Play, A Touch of the Poet, The Cherry Orchard, What the Butler Saw, and Those the River Keeps at the A.R.T. Previously he composed music and designed sound for productions at the Intiman Theatre, the Bathhouse Theatre, and the Alice B. Theatre. He also scores for dance and has composed for the Allegro Dance Festival, the Bumbershoot Festival, and On The Boards.

David Gordon (director, choreographer, and co-writer of Punch and Judy Get Divorced) performed in the companies of James Waring and Yvonne Rainer in the 1960s, and in the 1970s he was a founding member of the improvisational group the Grand Union. In 1971 he formed the Pick Up Performance Company (incorporated in 1978 as a non-profit organization), which helps to support and administer his work in live performance and media. He is a Guggenheim Fellow (1981 and 1987) and has been a panelist and chairman of the dance program panel of the NEA. His video work has appeared on Great Performances, Alive TV, the BBC, and Channel 4/Great Britain. The Mysteries and What's So Funny?, written and directed by Gordon with music by Philip Glass and visual design by Red Grooms, was awarded a Bessie Award and an Obie Award. The script was published in Grove New American Theater. Recently Gordon collaborated with Ain Gordon on The Family Business, which premiered at Dance Theater Workshop in New York City in February 1994, received an Obie Award, and was presented at New York Theatre Workshop and at the Mark Taper Forum in 1995. They collaborated again on the text for Punch and Judy Get Divorced, which premiered at the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia in May. He directed and choreographed the original production of Shlemiel the First for the American Repertory Theater and the American Music Theater Festival, as well as the national tours of the show. He received a National Theatre Artist Residency Grant (funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by TCG) to work with the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, and he directed and choreographed The Firebugs by Max Frisch for their mainstage in 1995. He is currently working with Ain Gordon on a commission from the Mark Taper Forum.

A.R.T.: The Lily’s Revenge, Cabaret, Paradise Lost, Endgame, The Seagull, Oliver Twist, Island of Slaves, The Onion Cellar, The Communist Dracula Pageant, Cardenio, Julius Caesar, Amerika, The Miser, Henry IV and V, The Birthday Party, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, La Dispute, Uncle Vanya, Enrico IV, The Winter’s Tale, The Wild Duck, Buried Child, Tartuffe, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Waiting for Godot. Regional: Twelfth Night, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company; Sweeney Todd, My Fair Lady, Lyric Stage Company; Boston Playwrights’ Theatre; The Poets’ Theater; Israeli Stage; Central Square Theater; New Repertory Theater; Hartford Stage.

Ron Bobb-Semple (Zeinvel Shmeckel in Shlemiel the First) was previously seen at the American Repertory Theater in Derek Walcott's Steel and also played Shmeckel during the A.R.T. company's Florida tour of Shlemiel. He recently had his third crack at award-winning playwright August Wilson's play Seven Guitars; the other two being Fences with Avery Brooks and the Piano Lesson. His other stage credits include My Children, My Africa! at the Wells Theatre in Virginia; Life During Wartime at the 14th Street Playhouse in Atlanta, Georgia; and Shango de Ima in New York, for which he won the Audelco Award for Best Supporting Actor. Mr. Bobb-Semple is the executive producer of Claudron Productions, which launched a new anti-drug play Don't Ruin Your Life for young people twelve to eighteen years old. It is to be presented in schools and other venues in and around the New York City area beginning in October.

Scott Cunningham grew up in Needham, Massachusetts. He originated the roles of Mendel Schmendrick and Man in House in Shlemiel the First and was also seen in Punch and Judy Get Divorced and The Mysteries and What's So Funny? at the American Repertory Theater. He has been a member of David Gordon's Pick Up Company since 1986 and has worked with him in dance, theater, and television. He has also danced with Elisa Monte and the Mark Morris Group and has recently appeared in The Firebugs at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. His choreography has been shown in New York City, Madison, and Milwaukee.

Benjamin Evett has appeared at the American Repertory Theater in La Dispute, as Ilya Ilych Telegin in Uncle Vanya, Kinesias in Lysistrata, Jacques Roux in Marat/Sade, Peter in Absolution, Cassio in Othello, Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk/Sir Stephen Scroope in Richard II, Burris in Animals and Plants, the General in Mother Courage, the Messenger in Antigone, Time in The Winter's Tale, Lvov in Ivanov, the Policeman in Charlie in the House of Rue, Babbybobby in The Cripple of Inishmaan, Hyppolytus in Phaedra, Clèante in The Imaginary Invalid, Tranio in The Taming of the Shrew, Pentheus in The Bacchae, Zalman Tippish/Chaim Rascal/Dopey Petzel in Shlemiel the First, the Dreamer in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Leandro in The King Stag, the Son in Six Characters in Search of an Author, Punch 2/Judy Bell/Taxi Judy in Punch and Judy Get Divorced, Bouggerslas in Ubu Rock, Vince in Buried Child, Ariel in The Tempest, Charles Filch/Walt Dreary/Beggar Joe in The Threepenny Opera, Bardolph/Montjoy in Henry V, Lucky in Waiting for Godot, Herald/Chorus/Pylades/Hermes in The Oresteia, Epihodov in The Cherry Orchard, Nicholas Beckett in What the Butler Saw, Pistol in Henry IV, Part 2, and as Sir Richard Vernon in Part 1, in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, and in Platonov. He has also performed at the Missouri Repertory Theatre, where he played the title roles in Billy Bishop Goes to War and Amadeus, and at the Great Lakes Theatre Festival, where he played Swiss Cheese in Mother Courage. He is a graduate of Harvard University and the American Repertory Theater/Moscow Art Theater Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University. Mr. Evett currently serves as artistic director of the Actors' Shakespeare Company in Boston.

Vlad Tepes/the Functionary in The Communist Dracula Pageant. A.R.T.: Fifty-four productions, including Alfed in Cardenio, Conspirator in Julius Caesar, Niels Bohr in Copenhagen, Eddie Darko in Donnie Darko, A Marvelous Party!, Mr. Brownlow in Oliver Twist (also at Theatre for a New Audience and Berkeley Repertory Theatre), Capulet in Romeo and Juliet, Garcin in No Exit, Kulygin in Three Sisters, Uncle Jacob, Innkeeperess, Head Waiter in Amerika, Jupiter in Dido, Queen of Carthage, Valère in The Miser, Goldberg in The Birthday Party, Egeus and Peter Quince in A Midsummer Night's Dream, several roles in Highway Ulysses, the President of the Senate in Lysistrata, Marat in Marat/Sade, Brabantio and Lodovico in Othello, Dantly in Animals and Plants, the Father in Nocturne, Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington in The Doctor's Dilemma, Gregory Smirnov and Gonov in Three Farces and a Funeral, Heiner Müller in Full Circle, Borkin in Ivanov, the State Trooper, Policeman, Grave Digger, and Grandfather in We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay!, Dr. McSharry in The Cripple of Inishmaan, Karl Hudlocke in The Marriage of Bette and Boo, Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, Argan in The Imaginary Invalid, Gremio in The Taming of the Shrew, Tiresias in The Bacchae, the title role and other parts in Shlemiel the First, the Doctor in Woyzeck, Hjalmar in The Wild Duck, Brighella in The King Stag, Will in Six Characters in Search of an Author, Mother/Father in Alice in Bed, King Wenceslas/McGreedy in Ubu Rock, Cléante in Tartuffe, Sebastian in The Tempest, Murray in Demons, Exeter in Henry V, Aegisthus and Chorus in The Oresteia, Sagot in Picasso at the Lapin Agile, the Earl of Westmoreland in Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, and Lord Chief Justice in Part 2. Other credits include The Rivals and Melinda Lopez's Sonia Flew (Huntington Theatre), Twelfth Night (Feste, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company), Brian Friel's Faith Healer (Gloucester Stage Company), Shear Madness (all male roles), the Boston Pops premiere of How the Grinch Stole Christmas (narrator). Film: Next Stop Wonderland. Television: the Cable Ace Award–winning animated series Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist (voice of Stanley).

Maureen McVerry returns to the role of Tryna Rytza in Shlemiel the First, which she previously performed at the American Conservatory Theatre performances in San Francisco. She also played Yenta Pesha/Gittel/Sender Shlamazel at the Geffen Playhouse (Los Angeles) performances of Shlemiel. McVerry previously appeared at the ACT as Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion, Kitty Packard in Dinner at Eight, the Gypsy in Scapin, and Sister Gabriella in The Pope and the Witch. She was featured as Kay in the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival production of Oh Kay!, and in two long-running San Francisco shows, Noises Off and The Curse of the Werewolf. At Marin Theatre Company she has appeared in Side by Side by Sondheim, You're Gonna Love Tomorrow, Born Yesterday, Room Service, and Noises Off. She is the winner of five Bay Area Theatre Critics' Circle Awards and two Drama-Logue Awards. Since 1994 she has performed her evolving one-woman cabaret show, Verry McVerry, including an appearance last fall at San Francisco's Plush Room. McVerry's film and television credits include Nine Months, The Dead Pool, True Believer, Big Business, The Ox and the Eye, and Full House.

Marilyn Sokol, who plays Yenta Pesha, Gittel, and Sender Shlamazel in Shlemiel the First, originated these roles at the A.R.T. in 1993 and performed them on tour throughout the U.S. She was last seen on Broadway in Conversations With My Father; and at the St. Louis MUNY as Golde in Fiddler on the Roof. Her other theatre credits include The Merry Wives of Windsor at both the New York Shakespeare Festival and the Folger Shakespeare Theatre, Candide at the The Goodman Theatre, and Genet's The Screens at the Chelsea Theatre, where she won an Obie Award for her portrayal of Lady Lockit in The Beggars Opera. She has worked with the San Francisco Mime Troupe, The Open Theatre, and the Circle Repertory Theatre (as Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus). Her films include Family Business, Foul Play, The Goodbye Girl, and The Front, and she has appeared in a variety of TV programs including Law and Order, Barney Miller, All That Glitters, and Sesame Street.