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Group Theatre (New York)
The Group Theatre was a theater collective based in New York City and formed in 1931 by Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford and Lee Strasberg. It was intended as a base for the kind of theatre they and their colleagues believed in— a forceful, naturalistic and highly disciplined artistry. They were pioneers of what would become an "American acting technique", derived from the teachings of Konstantin Stanislavski, but pushed beyond them as well. The company included actors, directors, playwrights, and producers. The name "Group" came from the idea of the actors as a pure ensemble; a reference to the company as "our group" led them to "accept the inevitable and call their company The Group Theatre."Clurman, p. 51 The New York-based Group Theatre had no connection with the identically named Group Theatre based in London and founded in 1932. In the ten years of its existence, the Group Theatre produced works by many important American playwrights, including Clifford Odets, Sidney K ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pine Brook Country Club
Pine Brook Country Club is a private lake association in Nichols, Connecticut, a village within the Town of Trumbull. It began when Benjamin Plotkin purchased Pinewood Lake and the surrounding countryside on Mischa Hill. Plotkin built an auditorium with a revolving stage and forty rustic cabins and incorporated as the Pine Brook Country Club in 1930. Plotkin's dream was to market the rural lakeside club as a summer resort for people to stay and enjoy theatrical productions. The Club remained in existence until productions were disrupted by World War II, and was reorganized as a private lake association in 1944. Group Theatre (New York) Pine Brook is best known for having been the 1936 summer rehearsal headquarters of what some regard as the most important experiment in the history of American theatre. The Group Theatre (New York) was formed in New York City in 1931 by Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford and Lee Strasberg and was made up of actors, directors, playwrights and pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Garfield
John Garfield (born Jacob Julius Garfinkle, March 4, 1913 – May 21, 1952) was an American actor who played brooding, rebellious, working-class characters. He grew up in poverty in New York City. In the early 1930s, he became a member of the Group Theatre (New York), Group Theater. In 1937, he moved to Hollywood, eventually becoming one of Warner Bros.' stars. He received Academy Awards, Academy Award nominations for his performances in ''Four Daughters'' (1938) and ''Body and Soul (1947 film), Body and Soul'' (1947). Called to testify before the U.S. Congressional House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), he denied Communist Party USA, communist affiliation and refused to "name names", effectively ending his film career. Some have alleged that the stress of this persecution led to his premature death at 39 from a heart attack. Garfield is acknowledged as a predecessor of such Method acting, Method actors as Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and James Dean. Early ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don Richardson (director)
Don Richardson (April 30, 1918 – January 10, 1996) was an American actor, director, acting teacher, as well as an author. Career Richardson was an original member of the Group Theatre, which was the nucleus of Acting in the United States. His fellow Group Theatre members included Lee Strasberg, Sanford Meisner, Stella Adler, and Uta Hagen, although Richardson was the only student who said, "The Method isn’t what acting is about." Richardson directed three Broadway productions and over 800 television shows, including ''Get Smart'' (TV series) (1965), '' One Day at a Time'' (TV series) (1975–1976), ''Lost in Space'' (TV series) (1966–1968), '' The Defenders'' (TV series) (1961–1963), and ''Bonanza'' (TV series) (1968–1971). His work remains in the permanent collection of The Museum of Broadcasting, The Jewish Museum of New York, and UCLA Film and Television Archive. Richardson taught acting at UCLA, Colombia’s Barnard College and American Academy of Dramatic Art ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Randolph (actor)
Emanuel Hirsch Cohen (June 1, 1915 – February 24, 2004), better known by the stage name John Randolph, was an American film, television and stage actor. Early life Randolph was born Emanuel Hirsch Cohen in New York City on June 1, 1915, the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia and Romania. His mother, Dorothy (married and maiden names, née Shorr), was an insurance agent, and his father, Louis Cohen, was a hat manufacturer. In the 1930s, he spent his summers at the Pine Brook Country Club in Nichols, Connecticut which was the summer home of the Group Theatre (New York), Group Theatre. He made his Broadway debut in 1938 in ''Coriolanus (play), Coriolanus''. Randolph joined the United States Army Air Forces in World War II. He had a small role in the 1948 film ''The Naked City''. He and wife Sarah Cunningham (actress), Sarah Cunningham were blacklisted from working in Hollywood films and in New York film and television and radio after 1948. In 1955 they were both called before the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets (July 18, 1906 – August 14, 1963) was an American playwright, screenwriter, and actor. In the mid-1930s, he was widely seen as the potential successor to Nobel Prize-winning playwright Eugene O'Neill, as O'Neill began to withdraw from Broadway's commercial pressures and increasing critical backlash. From January 1935, Odets's socially relevant dramas were extremely influential, particularly for the remainder of the Great Depression. His works inspired the next several generations of playwrights, including Arthur Miller, Paddy Chayefsky, Neil Simon, and David Mamet. After the production of his play ''Clash by Night (play), Clash by Night'' in the 1941–42 season, Odets focused his energies primarily on film projects, remaining in Hollywood for the next seven years. He returned to New York in 1948 for five and a half years, during which time he produced three more Broadway plays, only one of which was a success. His prominence was eventually eclipsed by Miller, Ten ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruth Nelson (actress)
Ruth Gloria Nelson (August 2, 1905 – September 12, 1992) was an American stage and film actress. She is known for her roles in films such as '' Wilson'', '' A Tree Grows in Brooklyn'', ''Humoresque'', '' 3 Women'', ''The Late Show'' and ''Awakenings''. She was the wife of John Cromwell, with whom she acted on multiple occasions. Early life Born in Saginaw, Michigan, Nelson was the daughter of Sanford Leroy Nelson and vaudeville actress Eva Mudge. She attended Immaculate Heart Convent School in Los Angeles, studying first with Daniel Frohman and then with Richard Boleslawski at the American Laboratory Theatre in New York City during the early 1920s. Career Nelson made her stage debut in New York on April 4, 1928 at the Laboratory Theatre under Boleslawski's direction, portraying the title character in Jean-Jacques Bernard's ''Martine''. Over the next two seasons, Nelson made two more appearances—in Checkhov's ''The Seagull'' and Vladimir Kirshon's ''Red Rust''—prior to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harry Morgan
Harry Morgan (born Harry Bratsberg; April 10, 1915 – December 7, 2011) was an American actor and director whose television and film career spanned six decades. Morgan's major roles included Pete Porter in both ''December Bride'' (1954–1959) and '' Pete and Gladys'' (1960–1962); Officer Bill Gannon on '' Dragnet'' (1967–1970); Amos Coogan on '' Hec Ramsey'' (1972–1974); and his starring role as Colonel Sherman T. Potter in ''M*A*S*H'' (1975–1983) and ''AfterMASH'' (1983–1985). Morgan also appeared in more than 100 films. Early life and career Morgan was born Harry Bratsberg in Detroit, the son of Hannah and Henry Bratsberg.United States Census for 1930; Census Place: Muskegon, Muskegon, Michigan; Roll: 1014; p. 7B; Enumeration District: 27; Image: 830.0. His parents were of Swedish and Norwegian ancestry. In his interview with the Archive of American Television, Morgan spelled his Norwegian family surname as "Brasburg". Many sources, however, including some family ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sanford Meisner
Sanford Meisner (August 31, 1905 – February 2, 1997) was an American actor and acting teacher who developed an approach to acting instruction that is now known as the Meisner technique. While Meisner was exposed to method acting at the Group Theatre, his approach differed markedly in that he completely abandoned the use of affective memory, a distinct characteristic of method acting. Meisner maintained an emphasis on "the reality of doing", which was the foundation of his approach. Early life Born in Brooklyn, New York City, Meisner was the oldest child of Hermann Meisner, a furrier, and Bertha Knoepfler, both Jewish immigrants who came to the United States from Hungary. His younger siblings were Jacob, Ruth, and Robert. To improve Sanford's health during his youth, his family took a trip to the Catskills. While there, however, his brother Jacob contracted bovine tuberculosis from drinking unpasteurized milk and died shortly thereafter. In an interview many years later, Meisn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eleanor Lynn
Eleanor Lynn (October 29, 1916 – December 26, 1996) was an American actress who was known for both movies and theater. Her films include ''The Magician's Daughter'' (1938), ''Fugitives for a Night'' (1938) and ''As Husbands Go'' (1933). She left Hollywood to star in the Broadway production of the Clifford Odets play ''Rocket to the Moon (play), Rocket to the Moon'' (1938), as a member of the Group Theatre (New York City), Group Theatre in New York City. Filmography References External links * * * 1916 births 1996 deaths 20th-century American actresses American film actresses American stage actresses {{US-actor-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Lewis (actor)
Robert Lewis (March 16, 1909 – November 23, 1997) was an American actor, director, teacher, author and founder of the influential Actors Studio in New York in 1947. In addition to his accomplishments on Broadway and in Hollywood, Lewis' greatest and longest lasting contribution to American theater may be the role he played as one of the foremost acting and directing teachers of his day. He was an early proponent of the Stanislavski System of acting technique and a founding member of New York's revolutionary Group Theatre in the 1930s. In the 1970s, he was the Head of the Yale School of Drama Acting and Directing Departments. Early years Robert (Bobby) Lewis was born in Brooklyn in 1909 to a middle-class working family. Encouraged in the arts by his mother, a former contralto, Lewis acquired an early and lifelong interest in music, particularly opera. He studied cello and piano as a child but these eventually gave way to his love of acting. In 1929, he joined Eva Le Gallienne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canada Lee
Canada Lee (born Leonard Lionel Cornelius Canegata; March 3, 1907 – May 9, 1952) was an American professional boxer and then an actor who pioneered roles for African Americans. After careers as a jockey, boxer and musician, he became an actor in the Federal Theatre Project, including the 1936 production of ''Macbeth'' adapted and directed by Orson Welles. Lee later starred in Welles's original Broadway production of ''Native Son'' (1941). A champion of civil rights in the 1930s and 1940s, Lee was blacklisted and died shortly before he was scheduled to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He advanced the African American tradition in theatre pioneered by such actors as Paul Robeson. Lee was the father of actor Carl Lee. Biography Early life Lee was born Leonard Lionel Cornelius Canegata on March 3, 1907, in the San Juan Hill neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. His father, James Cornelius Lionel Canegata, was born on the Caribbean island of St. Cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan (; born Elias Kazantzoglou ( el, Ηλίας Καζαντζόγλου); September 7, 1909 – September 28, 2003) was an American film and theatre director, producer, screenwriter and actor, described by ''The New York Times'' as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history". Born in Constantinople (now Istanbul), to Cappadocian Greek parents, his family came to the United States in 1913. After attending Williams College and then the Yale School of Drama, he acted professionally for eight years, later joining the Group Theatre in 1932, and co-founded the Actors Studio in 1947. With Robert Lewis and Cheryl Crawford, his actors' studio introduced "Method Acting" under the direction of Lee Strasberg. Kazan acted in a few films, including ''City for Conquest'' (1940). His films were concerned with personal or social issues of special concern to him. Kazan writes, "I don't move unless I have some empathy with the basic theme." His ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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