Elliot Tiber
Encyclopedia
Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Music & Art Fair was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music". It was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to August 18, 1969...
, held in Bethel, New York
Bethel, New York
Bethel is a town in Sullivan County, New York, USA. The population has been estimated at 4,532 in 2007.The town received worldwide fame after it became the host of the 1969 Woodstock Festival, which was originally planned for Wallkill, New York, but was relocated to Bethel after Wallkill withdrew.-...
in 1969.
Tiber's 2007 memoir Taking Woodstock
Taking Woodstock (book)
Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert and a Life is a memoir describing the origins of the 1969 Woodstock Festival by Elliot Tiber with Tom Monte. It was published in 2007 by Square One Publishers, Inc., and was adapted into a movie of the same name by James Schamus, Ang Lee's long...
, written with Tom Monte, was adapted as a movie of the same name
Taking Woodstock
Taking Woodstock is a 2009 American comedy-drama film about the Woodstock Festival of 1969, directed by Ang Lee. The screenplay by James Schamus is based on the memoir Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life by Elliot Tiber and Tom Monte.The film premiered at the 2009 Cannes...
by Ang Lee
Ang Lee
Ang Lee is a Taiwanese film director. Lee has directed a diverse set of films such as Eat Drink Man Woman , Sense and Sensibility , Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon , Hulk , and Brokeback Mountain , for which he won an Academy...
. The film opened in the United States in August 2009. Tiber is portrayed by Demetri Martin
Demetri Martin
Demetri Martin is an American comedian, actor, artist, musician, writer and humorist. Martin is best known for his work as a stand-up comedian, contributor on The Daily Show and for his Comedy Central show Important Things with Demetri Martin.- Early life :Demetri Martin was born to a Greek...
, best known for his stand-up comedy.
Early life
Tiber was born in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York. His family moved to White Lake in Bethel in 1955 where they acquired a rooming house that they expanded into a motel, called the El Monaco Motel, at the intersection of New York Route 17B and New York Route 55 near the southwest shore of White Lake.Tiber attended Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...
and received a BFA
Bachelor of Fine Arts
In the United States and Canada, the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, usually abbreviated BFA, is the standard undergraduate degree for students seeking a professional education in the visual or performing arts. In some countries such a degree is called a Bachelor of Creative Arts or BCA...
from Hunter College
Hunter College
Hunter College, established in 1870, is a public university and one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Hunter grants undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees in more than one hundred fields of study, and is recognized...
. He was in the MFA
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
program at Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute is a private art college in New York City located in Brooklyn, New York, with satellite campuses in Manhattan and Utica. Pratt is one of the leading undergraduate art schools in the United States and offers programs in Architecture, Graphic Design, History of Art and Design,...
.
Taking Woodstock
In his book Taking WoodstockTaking Woodstock (book)
Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert and a Life is a memoir describing the origins of the 1969 Woodstock Festival by Elliot Tiber with Tom Monte. It was published in 2007 by Square One Publishers, Inc., and was adapted into a movie of the same name by James Schamus, Ang Lee's long...
, Tiber says he was present at the Stonewall Riots
Stonewall riots
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City...
on June 28, 1969, and that he had a part in bringing the Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Music & Art Fair was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music". It was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to August 18, 1969...
to Bethel, New York
Bethel, New York
Bethel is a town in Sullivan County, New York, USA. The population has been estimated at 4,532 in 2007.The town received worldwide fame after it became the host of the 1969 Woodstock Festival, which was originally planned for Wallkill, New York, but was relocated to Bethel after Wallkill withdrew.-...
.
Tiber said he led a closeted
Closeted
Closeted and in the closet are metaphors used to describe lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning and intersex people who have not disclosed their sexual orientation or gender identity and aspects thereof, including sexual identity and sexual behavior.-Background:In late 20th...
life in Bethel in the early 1960s as he spent time managing his parents' El Monaco Motel, serving as President of the Bethel Chamber of Commerce, and, at the same time, participating in the gay scene in New York, where he lived.
According to Taking Woodstock, Tiber read that Wallkill, Orange County, New York
Wallkill, Orange County, New York
Wallkill is a town in Orange County, New York, United States. The population was 24,659 at the 2000 census.The Town of Wallkill is centrally located in the county. Interstate 84 crosses New York State Route 17 in the southern part of the town. U.S...
had on July 15, 1969 pulled the plug on the planned Woodstock Festival at the Mills Industrial Park northeast of Middletown, New York
Middletown, Orange County, New York
Middletown is a city in Orange County, New York, United States. It lies in New York's Hudson Valley region, near the Wallkill River and the foothills of the Shawangunk Mountains. Middletown is situated between Port Jervis and Newburgh, New York. The city's population was 25,388 at the 2000 census...
.
Tiber says in the book that he had a permit for the White Lake Music and Arts Festival, a planned chamber music
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
event at his motel. He contacted Michael Lang and pitched the idea of having the festival on 15 acres (60,702.9 m²) along the edge of White Lake by the motel.
According to Taking Woodstock, when Lang said the motel property was too small, he introduced the producers to dairy farmer Max Yasgur
Max Yasgur
Max B. Yasgur was an American farmer, best known as the owner of the dairy farm in Bethel, New York at which the Woodstock Music and Art Fair was held between August 15 and August 18, 1969....
, and helped facilitate the deal.
Lang, however, says that Tiber referred him to a local real estate salesman, and that the salesman drove Lang, without Tiber, to Yasgur's farm. Sam Yasgur, son of Max Yasgur, agrees with Lang's version, and says that his mother, who is still alive, says Max did not know Tiber. Artie Kornfeld
Artie Kornfeld
Artie Kornfeld is an American musician, record producer and music executive. He is perhaps best known as the music promoter for the Woodstock Festival held in 1969.- History :...
, a Woodstock organizer, has said he found out about Yasgur’s farm from his own sources.
Tiber left Bethel shortly after Woodstock and soon moved to Los Angeles, where he became a movie set designer. The motel became an Italian restaurant and was torn down in 2004. It is now marked by a clock tower welcoming people to White Lake.
Screenwriter
His 1970s book, Rue Haute, was a best seller in Europe, and made into a French-language movie directed by his domestic partner, André Ernotte. It was Belgium's entry for the 49th Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film in 1977. The book was released in English in the United States in 1977 under the name High Street.Teaching career
He taught creative writing at New School University, fine art at Hunter CollegeHunter College
Hunter College, established in 1870, is a public university and one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Hunter grants undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees in more than one hundred fields of study, and is recognized...
, and art design history at the New York Institute of Technology
New York Institute of Technology
New York Institute of Technology is a private, non-sectarian, co-educational research university in New York City. NYIT has five schools and two colleges, all with a strong emphasis on technology and applied scientific research...
.
Books
- High Street - Avon (1977)
- Knock on Woodstock: The Uproarious, Uncensored Story of the Woodstock Festival, the Gay Man Who Made It Happen, and How He Earned His Ticket to Freedom - Joel Friedlander (1994) ISBN 0964180618
- Taking WoodstockTaking Woodstock (book)Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert and a Life is a memoir describing the origins of the 1969 Woodstock Festival by Elliot Tiber with Tom Monte. It was published in 2007 by Square One Publishers, Inc., and was adapted into a movie of the same name by James Schamus, Ang Lee's long...
(with Tom Monte) - Square One Publishers (June 15, 2007) ISBN 0757002935 - Palm Trees On the Hudson (2010)