Albert Marre
Encyclopedia
Albert Marre is an American
director and producer in the theatre
.
Born in New York City
, Marre made his Broadway
debut as an actor
and associate director of the 1950 revival of John Vanbrugh
's Restoration comedy
The Relapse
. Three years later he helmed a production of George Bernard Shaw
's Misalliance
, followed by Kismet
, for which he received the 1954 Donaldson Award (precursor to the Tonys) for Best Director of a Musical. The cast of Kismet included Alfred Drake
, Doretta Morrow, Richard Kiley as The Caliph, and Joan Diener
as Lalume, the seductive wife of the Wazir. Marre and Diener wed in 1956, subsequently had two children, and remained married until her death in 2006. Marre is currently married to actress-lyricist Mimi Turque; they wed in 2009.
In 1956, Marre was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Director for The Chalk Garden
. That same year he directed to great acclaim a revival of Shaw's Saint Joan
starring Siobhan McKenna
. In 1958, he directed the Jean Anouilh play, Time Remembered
(translated by Patricia Moyes), which starred Helen Hayes
, Richard Burton
, Susan Strasberg and Sig Arno. The production won five Tony nominations including Best Play, and Helen Hayes took home the prize for Best Actress. The same year, he directed a production of At the Grand, a musical version of Vicki Baum
's 1930 novel Grand Hotel
, in Los Angeles
, with his wife as the opera diva who falls in love with a charming, but larcenous, faux baron. (Although the show never reached Broadway, it was revamped drastically more than thirty years later and, directed by Tommy Tune
, became the hit Grand Hotel
.)
Marre returned to New York where he scored with Jerry Herman
's first Broadway musical, Milk and Honey
, nominated for five Tony Awards including Best Musical. He also directed a revival of Shaw's little-known Too True to Be Good, with an all-star cast. A couple of misfires were followed by what proved to be his greatest success, Dale Wasserman
, Joe Darion
and Mitch Leigh
's Man of La Mancha
, starring Richard Kiley and Diener. Marre won the Tony Award for Best Director of a Musical and went on to direct numerous national and international productions of the hit, as well as the Broadway revivals in 1972, 1977, and 1992. (He was signed to direct the screen version but was replaced first by Peter Glenville
, and ultimately by Arthur Hiller
, after artistic differences with United Artists
executives. The finished film, starring Peter O'Toole and Sophia Loren, was critically and financially unsuccessful.)
Marre's subsequent collaborations with Leigh and his wife, the musicals Cry for Us All
(1970) and Home Sweet Homer
(1976), were not successful. He also directed two versions of Chu Chem
, a musical by Leigh, Ted Allan, Jim Haines and Jack Wohl. The original in 1966, starring Menasha Skulnick and Molly Picon
, closed out of town in Philadelphia), while a second version opened Off-Broadway in 1988 at the Jewish Repertory Theatre in New York. Buoyed by good reviews from both The New York Times and The New York Post (Clive Barnes), the show was subsequently moved to Broadway in 1989, where it was unfortunately not as well received.
In 1948, Marre was one of the co-founders of the historic Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, MA, one of the country's first classical repertory companies (and one not build on the not-for-profit model), which yielded five years of classics and new plays, many of which moved on to subsequent New York productions. Many luminaries of stage and screen were to pass through the Brattle's doors as either a guest or a resident company member, including Zero Mostel, Jessica Tandy, Hume Cronyn, Sarah Allgood, Luise Rainer, Thayer David, Jerome Kilty, Peter Temple, Fred Gwynne, Nancy Marchand, Ruth Ford, John Carradine, Estelle Winwood, Claire Luce, Priscilla Morrill, Mildred Dunnock, Anne Revere, John Beal, Wiliam Devlin, Hermione Gingold, Blanche Yurka, Betty Field, Hurd Hatfield, Joseph Schildkraut, Cyril Ritchard, and Jan Farrand (Marre's first wife and a resident leading lady with the company). In 1953, he was hired by Lincoln Kirstein
to be the first Artistic Director for Theater at City Center, where he oversaw its first theatrical season. He was also an active director in both London and Los Angeles, particularly for Los Angeles Civic Light Opera Company, where he directed many major star-studded revivals including Burt Lancaster
in Knickerbocker Holiday
. He also directed the inaugural production at the Ahmanson Theatre
/Los Angeles Music Center
, The Sorrows of Frederick by Romulus Linney
, which starred Fritz Weaver
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
director and producer in the theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
.
Born in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Marre made his Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
debut as an actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
and associate director of the 1950 revival of John Vanbrugh
John Vanbrugh
Sir John Vanbrugh – 26 March 1726) was an English architect and dramatist, perhaps best known as the designer of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. He wrote two argumentative and outspoken Restoration comedies, The Relapse and The Provoked Wife , which have become enduring stage favourites...
's Restoration comedy
Restoration comedy
Restoration comedy refers to English comedies written and performed in the Restoration period from 1660 to 1710. After public stage performances had been banned for 18 years by the Puritan regime, the re-opening of the theatres in 1660 signalled a renaissance of English drama...
The Relapse
The Relapse
The Relapse, or, Virtue in Danger is a Restoration comedy from 1696 written by John Vanbrugh. The play is a sequel to Colley Cibber's Love's Last Shift, or, Virtue Rewarded....
. Three years later he helmed a production of George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
's Misalliance
Misalliance
Misalliance is a play written in 1909–1910 by George Bernard Shaw.Misalliance takes place entirely on a single Saturday afternoon in the conservatory of a large country house in Hindhead, Surrey in Edwardian era England. It is a continuation of some of the ideas on marriage that he expressed in...
, followed by Kismet
Kismet (musical)
Kismet is a musical with lyrics and musical adaptation by Robert Wright and George Forrest, adapted from the music of Alexander Borodin, and a book by Charles Lederer and Luther Davis, based on Kismet, the 1911 play by Edward Knoblock...
, for which he received the 1954 Donaldson Award (precursor to the Tonys) for Best Director of a Musical. The cast of Kismet included Alfred Drake
Alfred Drake
Alfred Drake was an American actor and singer.-Biography:Born as Alfred Capurro in New York City, the son of parents emigrated from Recco, Genoa, Drake began his Broadway career while still a student at Brooklyn College...
, Doretta Morrow, Richard Kiley as The Caliph, and Joan Diener
Joan Diener
Joan Diener was an American theatre actress and singer with a three-and-a-half-octave range.Born in Columbus, Ohio, Diener majored in psychology at Sarah Lawrence College and moonlighted as an actress while still a student...
as Lalume, the seductive wife of the Wazir. Marre and Diener wed in 1956, subsequently had two children, and remained married until her death in 2006. Marre is currently married to actress-lyricist Mimi Turque; they wed in 2009.
In 1956, Marre was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Director for The Chalk Garden
The Chalk Garden
The Chalk Garden is a play by Enid Bagnold that premiered on Broadway in 1955. The play tells the story of Mrs. St Maugham and her granddaughter Laurel, a disturbed child under Miss Madrigal's care. The setting of the play was inspired by Bagnold's own garden at North End House in Rottingdean, near...
. That same year he directed to great acclaim a revival of Shaw's Saint Joan
Saint Joan (play)
Saint Joan is a play by George Bernard Shaw, based on the life and trial of Joan of Arc. Published not long after the canonization of Joan of Arc by the Roman Catholic Church, the play dramatises what is known of her life based on the substantial records of her trial. Shaw studied the transcripts...
starring Siobhan McKenna
Siobhán McKenna
Siobhán McKenna was an Irish stage and screen actress.-Background:Born Siobhán Giollamhuire Nic Cionnaith in Belfast, Northern Ireland into a Catholic and nationalist family, she grew up in Galway City and in County Monaghan, Ireland speaking fluent Irish...
. In 1958, he directed the Jean Anouilh play, Time Remembered
Time Remembered
-Track listing:# "Danny Boy" - 10:41# "Like Someone in Love" - 6:27# "In Your Own Sweet Way" - 2:58# "Easy to Love" - 4:42...
(translated by Patricia Moyes), which starred Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes Brown was an American actress whose career spanned almost 70 years. She eventually garnered the nickname "First Lady of the American Theatre" and was one of twelve people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award...
, Richard Burton
Richard Burton
Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid...
, Susan Strasberg and Sig Arno. The production won five Tony nominations including Best Play, and Helen Hayes took home the prize for Best Actress. The same year, he directed a production of At the Grand, a musical version of Vicki Baum
Vicki Baum
Hedwig Baum was an Austrian writer. She is known for Menschen im Hotel , one of her first international successes....
's 1930 novel Grand Hotel
Grand Hotel (book)
Grand Hotel is a 1929 novel by Vicki Baum, which was the basis for the film Grand Hotel. It should not be confused with Berlin Hotel , published in 1945, which deals with the situation in Germany towards the end of World War II. The film Grand Hotel was remade as Week-End at the Waldorf ....
, in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, with his wife as the opera diva who falls in love with a charming, but larcenous, faux baron. (Although the show never reached Broadway, it was revamped drastically more than thirty years later and, directed by Tommy Tune
Tommy Tune
Thomas James "Tommy" Tune is an American actor, dancer, singer, theatre director, producer, and choreographer. Over the course of his career, he has won nine Tony Awards and the National Medal of Arts.-Early years:...
, became the hit Grand Hotel
Grand Hotel (musical)
Grand Hotel is a musical with a book by Luther Davis and music and lyrics by Robert Wright and George Forrest, with additional lyrics and music by Maury Yeston....
.)
Marre returned to New York where he scored with Jerry Herman
Jerry Herman
Jerry Herman is an American composer and lyricist, known for his work in Broadway musical theater. He composed the scores for the hit Broadway musicals Hello, Dolly!, Mame, and La Cage aux Folles. He has been nominated for the Tony Award five times, and won twice, for Hello, Dolly! and La Cage...
's first Broadway musical, Milk and Honey
Milk and Honey (musical)
Milk and Honey is a musical with a book by Don Appell and music and lyrics by Jerry Herman. The story centers on a busload of lonely American widows hoping to catch husbands while touring Israel and is set against the background of the country's fight for recognition as an independent nation...
, nominated for five Tony Awards including Best Musical. He also directed a revival of Shaw's little-known Too True to Be Good, with an all-star cast. A couple of misfires were followed by what proved to be his greatest success, Dale Wasserman
Dale Wasserman
Dale Wasserman was an American playwright. -Early life:Dale Wasserman was born in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, and was orphaned at the age of nine. He lived in a state orphanage and with an older brother in South Dakota before he "hit the rails". He later said:-Career:Wasserman worked in various...
, Joe Darion
Joe Darion
Joe Darion, was an American musical theatre lyricist, most famous for Man of La Mancha.Darion was born in New York City and died in Lebanon, New Hampshire.-External links:* at the Internet Broadway Database...
and Mitch Leigh
Mitch Leigh
Mitch Leigh is an American musical theatre composer and theatrical producer best known for the musical Man Of La Mancha.-Biography:Leigh was born in Brooklyn, New York) as Irwin Michnick...
's Man of La Mancha
Man of La Mancha
Man of La Mancha is a musical with a book by Dale Wasserman, lyrics by Joe Darion and music by Mitch Leigh. It is adapted from Wasserman's non-musical 1959 teleplay I, Don Quixote, which was in turn inspired by Miguel de Cervantes's seventeenth century masterpiece Don Quixote...
, starring Richard Kiley and Diener. Marre won the Tony Award for Best Director of a Musical and went on to direct numerous national and international productions of the hit, as well as the Broadway revivals in 1972, 1977, and 1992. (He was signed to direct the screen version but was replaced first by Peter Glenville
Peter Glenville
Peter Glenville , born Peter Patrick Brabazon Browne, was an English film and stage actor and director.-Biography:...
, and ultimately by Arthur Hiller
Arthur Hiller
Arthur Hiller, OC is a Canadian film director. His filmography includes 33 major studio releases, including the 1970 film Love Story...
, after artistic differences with United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
executives. The finished film, starring Peter O'Toole and Sophia Loren, was critically and financially unsuccessful.)
Marre's subsequent collaborations with Leigh and his wife, the musicals Cry for Us All
Cry for Us All
Cry for Us All is a musical with a book by William Alfred and Albert Marre, lyrics by Alfred and Phyllis Robinson, and music by Mitch Leigh. In response to poor advance sales, the title was...
(1970) and Home Sweet Homer
Home Sweet Homer (musical)
Home Sweet Homer is a musical with a book by Roland Kibbee and Albert Marre, lyrics by Charles Burr and Forman Brown, and music by Mitch Leigh.Originally called Odyssey, it is one of the most notorious flops in Broadway theatre history...
(1976), were not successful. He also directed two versions of Chu Chem
Chu Chem
Chu Chem is a musical with a book by Ted Allen, lyrics by Jim Haines and Jack Wohl, and music by Mitch Leigh.Allen's inspiration was a trip to Kaifeng Fu , China, the site of a major Jewish migration in the 10th century...
, a musical by Leigh, Ted Allan, Jim Haines and Jack Wohl. The original in 1966, starring Menasha Skulnick and Molly Picon
Molly Picon
Molly Picon was an American actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a lyricist and dramatic storyteller....
, closed out of town in Philadelphia), while a second version opened Off-Broadway in 1988 at the Jewish Repertory Theatre in New York. Buoyed by good reviews from both The New York Times and The New York Post (Clive Barnes), the show was subsequently moved to Broadway in 1989, where it was unfortunately not as well received.
In 1948, Marre was one of the co-founders of the historic Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, MA, one of the country's first classical repertory companies (and one not build on the not-for-profit model), which yielded five years of classics and new plays, many of which moved on to subsequent New York productions. Many luminaries of stage and screen were to pass through the Brattle's doors as either a guest or a resident company member, including Zero Mostel, Jessica Tandy, Hume Cronyn, Sarah Allgood, Luise Rainer, Thayer David, Jerome Kilty, Peter Temple, Fred Gwynne, Nancy Marchand, Ruth Ford, John Carradine, Estelle Winwood, Claire Luce, Priscilla Morrill, Mildred Dunnock, Anne Revere, John Beal, Wiliam Devlin, Hermione Gingold, Blanche Yurka, Betty Field, Hurd Hatfield, Joseph Schildkraut, Cyril Ritchard, and Jan Farrand (Marre's first wife and a resident leading lady with the company). In 1953, he was hired by Lincoln Kirstein
Lincoln Kirstein
Lincoln Edward Kirstein was an American writer, impresario, art connoisseur, and cultural figure in New York City...
to be the first Artistic Director for Theater at City Center, where he oversaw its first theatrical season. He was also an active director in both London and Los Angeles, particularly for Los Angeles Civic Light Opera Company, where he directed many major star-studded revivals including Burt Lancaster
Burt Lancaster
Burton Stephen "Burt" Lancaster was an American film actor noted for his athletic physique and distinctive smile...
in Knickerbocker Holiday
Knickerbocker Holiday
Knickerbocker Holiday is a musical written by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson ; it was directed by Joshua Logan. Among the songs introduced was the "September Song", now considered a pop standard.- History :...
. He also directed the inaugural production at the Ahmanson Theatre
Ahmanson Theatre
The Ahmanson Theatre is one of the four main venues that comprise the Los Angeles Music Center.Through the generosity of philanthropist Robert H. Ahmanson, construction began on March 9, 1962. The theatre opened on April 12, 1967 with a production of More Stately Mansions starring Ingrid Bergman,...
/Los Angeles Music Center
Los Angeles Music Center
The Music Center is one of the three largest performing arts centers in the nation. Located in downtown Los Angeles, the Music Center is home to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Ahmanson Theater, Mark Taper Forum and Walt Disney Concert Hall...
, The Sorrows of Frederick by Romulus Linney
Romulus Linney
Romulus Linney may refer to:*Romulus Zachariah Linney , American politician*Romulus Linney , American playwright...
, which starred Fritz Weaver
Fritz Weaver
Fritz William Weaver is an American actor and voice actor.-Life and career:Weaver was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Elsa W. and John Carson Weaver. His mother was of Italian descent and his father was a social worker from Pittsburgh. Weaver attended Peabody High School...
.