Jack Gelber
Encyclopedia
Jack Gelber was an American playwright best known for his 1959 drama The Connection
, depicting the life of drug-addicted jazz musicians. The first great success of the Living Theatre, 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 Brooklyn College
, City University of New York
, where he created the MFA
program in playwriting. In 1999 he received the Edward Albee
Last Frontier Playwright Award in recognition of his lifetime of achievements in theatre.
, the first of three sons of Harold and Molly Gelber, a Jewish couple of Romanian/Russian descent. Harold Gelber was a sheet metal worker
, a trade the younger Gelber would briefly adopt to finance his education at the University of Illinois. While at the university, he developed an interest in fiction and began to write short stories. After graduating with a B.S. in Journalism
in 1953, Gelber traveled to San Francisco, where he found work as a shipfitter's helper.
headquarters. He began writing his first play, The Connection, in late 1957. Two years later, he offered the script to Judith Malina
and Julian Beck
of the Living Theatre. Malina directed the production, Beck designed it, while Gelber was part of casting, directing rehearsals, and selling tickets. Opening in July 1959, the play quickly attracted controversy. Several theatre critics, particularly those writing for the daily newspapers, objected to the play's graphic depiction of heroin addiction
and its performance style. The play also attracted prominent supporters, such as the drama critics Kenneth Tynan
and Henry Hewes
, the poet Allen Ginsberg
, the writer Norman Mailer
, director Harold Clurman
, and Jerry Tallmer, who lauded what they perceived as its innovative style, authentic language, and realism.
The Connection 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 Obie Award
s of the Village Voice for Best New Play, Best Production, and Best Actor (Warren Finnerty
in the role of Leach) of the 1959-1960 season. Gelber also received the Vernon Rice Award (now known as the Drama Desk Award). In 1961 the Living Theatre took its production to Europe, where it earned the Grand Prix at the Théâtre des Nations Festival in Paris. Ultimately the Living Theatre performed The Connection a total of 722 times in the first years of the 1960s. The Connection has since been translated into five languages and performed in ten countries, as well as throughout the United States. The film version
of the play, produced by Lewis Allen and directed by Shirley Clarke
in 1961, also was controversial.
Gelber never achieved the same success with following plays, but he enjoyed a long and active career writing, directing, and teaching drama. His second play, The Apple, opened at the Living Theatre in 1961. It was the last of Gelber's works produced by that company. Not long after that production, the company moved overseas. In 1963 the Guggenheim Foundation
awarded Gelber a fellowship
(which it renewed three years later) to support his writing, and in 1964 he published his novel On Ice.
In 1965 he became writer-in-residence at the City College of New York
. His third play, Square in the Eye (1965) (also known as Let's Face It) was produced by the Establishment Theatre Company at the Theatre De Lys soon eafter. Gelber earned his first directing credit in the 1966 production of Arnold Wesker's
The Kitchen.
In 1967 Columbia University
appointed Gelber as a part-time adjunct professor of drama. In 1968 he completed the script for, and directed a production of, his fourth play The Cuban Thing. 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 Henry Miller's Theatre, the play was controversial for what some believed was a favorable portrayal of the communist leader Fidel Castro
, 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.
In 1968, Gelber signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.
In 1972 the Rockefeller Foundation
awarded Gelber a fellowship for a residency at the American Place Theatre, where his next play, Sleep, was performed. That same year Gelber become a full-time Professor of English at Brooklyn College
of the City University of New York
. 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 The Kid by Robert Coover
.
Gelber's writing was also supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts
and a CBS Fellowship from Yale University
. In 1973 the New York Shakespeare Festival
produced Barbary Shore, Gelber's adaptation of a 1951 novel written by Norman Mailer. His next production, entitled Farmyard and staged by the Yale Repertory Theatre
in 1975, was an adaptation of Franz Xaver Kroetz' 1971 play Stallerhof.
Gelber returned to creating original plays, directing a 1976 production of his drama Jack Gelber's New Play: Rehearsal at the American Place Theatre, and Starters at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center
in 1980. It was eight years before he had his tenth play, Big Shot, produced at Wildcliff Theatre by the East Coast Arts company. In the 1990s, three more of Gelber's plays were produced: Magic Valley (1990), and Rio Preserved and Chambers (1998).
In the mid-part of the decade, he became an adjunct professor at the Actors Studio Drama School at the New School University, a position he would hold until his death. Gelber's last play to be produced was Dylan's Line. Gelber completed the script in 2000 and performed a portion of it at the Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Valdez, Alaska
that same year. It premiered at the McCarter Theatre
in Princeton, New Jersey during 2003.
This was not long after Gelber died on May 9, 2003 in New York, due to Waldentrom's macroglobulinemia, a cancer
of the blood.
"I was so affected [as a young man] and energized by The Connection", [the playwright] Edward Albee
said after his death. "It was exciting, dangerous, instructive and terrifying - all things theater should be."
The Connection (1959 play)
The Connection is a 1959 play by Jack Gelber. It was first produced by the Living Theatre, directed by Living Theatre co-founder Judith Malina, and designed by co-founder Julian Beck...
, depicting the life of drug-addicted jazz musicians. The first great success of the Living Theatre, 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 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...
, City University of New York
City University of New York
The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...
, where he created the MFA
MFA
MFA may refer to:An academic degree or professional field:* Masters of Finance and Accounting* Master of Financial Analysis* Master of Fine Arts* Material Flow Accounting* Material Flow AnalysisA concept or phrase:* Made For Ads...
program in playwriting. In 1999 he received the Edward Albee
Edward Albee
Edward Franklin Albee III is an American playwright who is best known for The Zoo Story , The Sandbox , Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , and a rewrite of the screenplay for the unsuccessful musical version of Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's . His works are considered well-crafted, often...
Last Frontier Playwright Award in recognition of his lifetime of achievements in theatre.
Early life and education
Jack Gelber was born April 12, 1932, in ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, the first of three sons of Harold and Molly Gelber, a Jewish couple of Romanian/Russian descent. Harold Gelber was a sheet metal worker
Sheet Metal Workers' International Association
The Sheet Metal Workers International Association is a trade union of skilled metal workers who perform architectural sheet metal work, fabricate and install heating and air conditioning work, shipbuilding, appliance construction, heater and boiler construction, precision and specialty parts...
, a trade the younger Gelber would briefly adopt to finance his education at the University of Illinois. While at the university, he developed an interest in fiction and began to write short stories. After graduating with a B.S. in Journalism
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
in 1953, Gelber traveled to San Francisco, where he found work as a shipfitter's helper.
Marriage and family
In San Francisco, Gelber met Carol Westenberg, and they married on December 23, 1957, in New York City. They had two children.Career
In New York, Gelber first worked as a mimeograph operator at the United NationsUnited Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
headquarters. He began writing his first play, The Connection, in late 1957. Two years later, he offered the script to Judith Malina
Judith Malina
Judith Malina is an American theater and film actress, writer, and director, who was one of the founders of The Living Theatre.-Early life:...
and Julian Beck
Julian Beck
Julian Beck was an American actor, director, poet, and painter.-Early life:Beck was born in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan in New York City, the son of Mabel Lucille , a teacher, and Irving Beck, a businessman. He briefly attended Yale University, but dropped out to pursue writing and...
of the Living Theatre. Malina directed the production, Beck designed it, while Gelber was part of casting, directing rehearsals, and selling tickets. Opening in July 1959, the play quickly attracted controversy. Several theatre critics, particularly those writing for the daily newspapers, objected to the play's graphic depiction of heroin addiction
Addiction
Historically, addiction has been defined as physical and psychological dependence on psychoactive substances which cross the blood-brain barrier once ingested, temporarily altering the chemical milieu of the brain.Addiction can also be viewed as a continued involvement with a substance or activity...
and its performance style. The play also attracted prominent supporters, such as the drama critics Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Peacock Tynan was an influential and often controversial English theatre critic and writer.-Early life:...
and Henry Hewes
Henry Hewes
Henry Hewes was the Drama Critic for the Saturday Review weekly literary magazine from 1955 to 1979. He was the first major critic to regularly review regional and international theater...
, the poet Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
, the writer Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
, director Harold Clurman
Harold Clurman
Harold Edgar Clurman was a visionary American theatre director and drama critic, "one of the most influential in the United States". He was most notable as one of the three founders of the New York City's Group Theatre...
, and Jerry Tallmer, who lauded what they perceived as its innovative style, authentic language, and realism.
The Connection 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 Obie Award
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...
s of the Village Voice for Best New Play, Best Production, and Best Actor (Warren Finnerty
Warren Finnerty
Warren Finnerty was an American actor best known for his Obie award-winning performance in The Connection . After making his film debut in Murder, Inc. , he made a few television appearances before starring in the film adaption of The Connection , reprising his role from the stage production...
in the role of Leach) of the 1959-1960 season. Gelber also received the Vernon Rice Award (now known as the Drama Desk Award). In 1961 the Living Theatre took its production to Europe, where it earned the Grand Prix at the Théâtre des Nations Festival in Paris. Ultimately the Living Theatre performed The Connection a total of 722 times in the first years of the 1960s. The Connection has since been translated into five languages and performed in ten countries, as well as throughout the United States. The film version
The Connection (1961 film)
The Connection is a 1961 feature film by the noted American experimental filmmaker Shirley Clarke. It was Clarke's first feature; she had made several shorts over the previous decade....
of the play, produced by Lewis Allen and directed by Shirley Clarke
Shirley Clarke
Shirley Clarke was an American independent filmmaker.-Early life:Born Shirley Brimberg in New York City, Shirley Clarke was the daughter of a Polish-immigrant father who made his fortune in manufacturing. Her mother was the daughter of a multimillionaire Jewish manufacturer and inventor. Her...
in 1961, also was controversial.
Gelber never achieved the same success with following plays, but he enjoyed a long and active career writing, directing, and teaching drama. His second play, The Apple, opened at the Living Theatre in 1961. It was the last of Gelber's works produced by that company. Not long after that production, the company moved overseas. In 1963 the Guggenheim Foundation
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Mr. and Mrs. Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died April 26, 1922...
awarded Gelber a fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
(which it renewed three years later) to support his writing, and in 1964 he published his novel On Ice.
In 1965 he became writer-in-residence at the City College of New York
City College of New York
The City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...
. His third play, Square in the Eye (1965) (also known as Let's Face It) was produced by the Establishment Theatre Company at the Theatre De Lys soon eafter. Gelber earned his first directing credit in the 1966 production of Arnold Wesker's
Arnold Wesker
Sir Arnold Wesker is a prolific British dramatist known for his contributions to kitchen sink drama. He is the author of 42 plays, 4 volumes of short stories, 2 volumes of essays, a book on journalism, a children's book, extensive journalism, poetry and other assorted writings...
The Kitchen.
In 1967 Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
appointed Gelber as a part-time adjunct professor of drama. In 1968 he completed the script for, and directed a production of, his fourth play The Cuban Thing. 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 Henry Miller's Theatre, the play was controversial for what some believed was a favorable portrayal of the communist leader Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
, 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.
In 1968, Gelber signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.
In 1972 the Rockefeller Foundation
Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is a prominent philanthropic organization and private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The preeminent institution established by the six-generation Rockefeller family, it was founded by John D. Rockefeller , along with his son John D. Rockefeller, Jr...
awarded Gelber a fellowship for a residency at the American Place Theatre, where his next play, Sleep, was performed. That same year Gelber become a full-time Professor of English at 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...
of the City University of New York
City University of New York
The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...
. 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 The Kid by Robert Coover
Robert Coover
Robert Lowell Coover is an American author and professor in the Literary Arts program at Brown University. He is generally considered a writer of fabulation and metafiction.-Life and works:...
.
Gelber's writing was also supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
and a CBS Fellowship from Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
. In 1973 the New York Shakespeare Festival
New York Shakespeare Festival
New York Shakespeare Festival is the previous name of the New York City theatrical producing organization now known as the Public Theater. The Festival produced shows at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, as part of its free Shakespeare in the Park series, at the Public Theatre near Astor Place...
produced Barbary Shore, Gelber's adaptation of a 1951 novel written by Norman Mailer. His next production, entitled Farmyard and staged by the Yale Repertory Theatre
Yale Repertory Theatre
The Yale Repertory Theatre at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut was founded by Robert Brustein, dean of the Yale School of Drama in 1966, with the goal of facilitating a meaningful collaboration between theatre professionals and talented students. In the process it has become one of the...
in 1975, was an adaptation of Franz Xaver Kroetz' 1971 play Stallerhof.
Gelber returned to creating original plays, directing a 1976 production of his drama Jack Gelber's New Play: Rehearsal at the American Place Theatre, and Starters at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center
Eugene O'Neill Theater Center
The Eugene O'Neill Memorial Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut is a 501 not-for-profit theater company founded in 1964 by George C. White. The O'Neill is the recipient of the . The O'Neill is home to the National Theater Institute , and several major theater conferences including the...
in 1980. It was eight years before he had his tenth play, Big Shot, produced at Wildcliff Theatre by the East Coast Arts company. In the 1990s, three more of Gelber's plays were produced: Magic Valley (1990), and Rio Preserved and Chambers (1998).
In the mid-part of the decade, he became an adjunct professor at the Actors Studio Drama School at the New School University, a position he would hold until his death. Gelber's last play to be produced was Dylan's Line. Gelber completed the script in 2000 and performed a portion of it at the Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Valdez, Alaska
Valdez, Alaska
Valdez is a city in Valdez-Cordova Census Area in the U.S. state of Alaska. According to 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city is 4,020. The city is one of the most important ports in Alaska. The port of Valdez was named in 1790 after the Spanish naval officer Antonio Valdés y...
that same year. It premiered at the McCarter Theatre
McCarter Theatre
McCarter Theatre is a not-for-profit, professional company on the campus of Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey. It is one of the most active cultural centers in the nation, offering over 200 performances of theater, dance, music and special events each year...
in Princeton, New Jersey during 2003.
This was not long after Gelber died on May 9, 2003 in New York, due to Waldentrom's macroglobulinemia, a cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
of the blood.
"I was so affected [as a young man] and energized by The Connection", [the playwright] Edward Albee
Edward Albee
Edward Franklin Albee III is an American playwright who is best known for The Zoo Story , The Sandbox , Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , and a rewrite of the screenplay for the unsuccessful musical version of Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's . His works are considered well-crafted, often...
said after his death. "It was exciting, dangerous, instructive and terrifying - all things theater should be."
Plays
- The Connection (1959)
- The Apple (1960)
- Square in the Eye (1965)
- The Cuban Thing (1968)
- Sleep (1972)
- Barbary Shore (1973), adaptation of Norman MailerNorman MailerNorman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
's 1951 novel of the same name - Farmyard (1975), adaptation of Franz Xaver KroetzFranz Xaver KroetzFranz Xaver Kroetz is a German author, playwright, actor and film director. His plays have been translated and performed internationally.-Life:Kroetz attended an acting school in Munich and the Max-Reinhardt-Seminar in Vienna...
's play Stallerhof (1971) - Jack Gelber's New Play: Rehearsal (1976)
- Starters (1980)
- Big Shot (1988)
- Magic Valley (1990)
- Rio Preserved (1998) and Chambers (1998)
- Dylan's Line (2000), first produced in 2003
Other writing
- On Ice (1964), novel
- Screenplays, including Charlie Siringo (1976), TV production.
- Short stories, published in periodicals such as Evergreen ReviewEvergreen ReviewEvergreen Review is a U.S.-based literary magazine founded by Barney Rosset, publisher of Grove Press. It existed in print from 1957 through 1973, and was re-launched online in 1998...
and PlayboyPlayboyPlayboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
. - Non-fictionNon-fictionNon-fiction is the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact...
articles published by The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, The NationThe NationThe Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
, and The Drama Review, among others.
Legacy and honors
- 1960, the production of The Connection won Obie AwardObie AwardThe Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...
s of the Village Voice for Best New Play, Best Production, and Best Actor. - 1960, Vernon Rice AwardDrama Desk AwardThe Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category...
for outstanding achievement in the off-broadway theatre - 1973, Obie Award for Distinguished Direction, for Robert CooverRobert CooverRobert Lowell Coover is an American author and professor in the Literary Arts program at Brown University. He is generally considered a writer of fabulation and metafiction.-Life and works:...
's The Kid - 1999, he received the Edward AlbeeEdward AlbeeEdward Franklin Albee III is an American playwright who is best known for The Zoo Story , The Sandbox , Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , and a rewrite of the screenplay for the unsuccessful musical version of Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's . His works are considered well-crafted, often...
Last Frontier Playwright Award in recognition of his lifetime of achievements in theatre.