Robert Kalfin
Encyclopedia
Robert Zangwill Kalfin is an American stage director and producer who has worked on and off Broadway
and at regional theaters throughout the country. He is a former artistic director of the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park and the founder/artistic director of The Chelsea Theater Center
.
The Kalfins shared a respect for the arts, particularly music, and they provided piano lessons and visits to concerts and opera. Kalfin's maternal grandmother wrote and recited poetry, worked with amateur theater groups, and loved to sing and folk dance.
Kalfin attended Alfred University
, where he majored in psychology and became involved with the drama club. He received an MFA from the Yale School of Drama
in 1957.
.
In the early 1960s, New York's commercial Off-Broadway was ending its golden years. There were very few not-for-profit theaters in New York, but funding was becoming available, both from the government and private corporations. Kalfin had long dreamed of starting his own theater. This was the time.
Kalfin wanted to develop a non-profit theater whose work was as professional and polished as the most heavily backed commercial productions and as daring as commercial Off-Broadway had been in earlier days, an institution that resembled the great European subsidized theaters. With George Bari, who had been a stage manager, and David Long, who had been a company manager, he founded the Chelsea Theater Center in the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan in 1965.
Kalfin produced his first season in St Peter's, an Episcopal Church, with a large adjoining Parish Hall that had been converted into a gymnasium. The Chelsea later moved to the Church of the Holy Apostles. Both were in lower Manhattan. After conflicts at each church, the Chelsea became the resident theater of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, from 1968-1978.
With the move, Kalfin acquired two new partners. Michael David
had studied theater administration at Yale; he currently produces on Broadway as a partner in Dodger Theatricals. Burl Hash had studied stagecraft at Yale and could find imaginative ways to construct scenery on the theater's tight budget.
In Brooklyn, Kalfin's theater developed a loyal audience and won raves from critics. During these ten years, however, new theaters opened, funding sources decreased, and costs rose. Many non-profit theaters became cautious. Kalfin and his partners continued to do cutting-edge work.
When black separatism threatened integration attempts in the late 60's, these three white producers staged some of the first black militant plays. When women began declaring independence from male-run institutions, these men produced feminist plays. Chelsea asked Jewish audiences to appreciate a play showing the humanity of a Nazi sympathizer, invited young audiences to understand the tribulations of old age, and gave seniors a close view of youth culture. Believing that theater reflects "shared universal experiences," Kalfin routinely put artists from different cultural and aesthetic backgrounds on the same project.
Glenn Close
, Frank Langella
, Christopher Lloyd
, and Meryl Streep
were among the artists who worked for minimum salaries to be part of the Chelsea experience. In 1973, Broadway director/producer Hal Prince
came to Brooklyn to stage the revival of Candide (operetta)
, which had been a Broadway flop. The audience sat inside, under, and around parts of the Candide set. When the show returned to Broadway, the producers gutted the theater to recreate the Chelsea's environmental set, designed by Eugene Lee. This meant fewer seats and less revenue, but it was an artistic triumph.
Critics often said Kalfin and his colleagues stretched the boundaries of theater. Spectators subscribed to seasons before they knew what plays the Chelsea producers would do.
In 1978, Kalfin responded to a growing financial crisis by moving the Chelsea to Manhattan, where it took up residence in the Westside Arts Theater, and later the New Federal Theater. It folded in 1986.
Kalfin has continued to direct at regional, Off-Broadway, and Broadway theaters.
Kalfin's life and work are documented in Chelsea on the Edge: The Adventures of an American Theater
, a book by Davi Napoleon
. The book puts the Chelsea in the context of American society, mainstream and counter-cultural, during the 1960s and 1970's and is the story of how the funding crisis in the arts impacted theater. It has gotten a following within the theater community both because it is one of the first in-depth studies of regional theater and because of its dramatic structure and novelistic narrative.
"Bob Kalfin is a unique man and Chelsea on the Edge is a fascinating account of the unique theatre he created," said Frank Langella. Glenn Close commented that the book interested her because it explores group dynamics and attempted to answer the question: "How does one maintain an organization that is created out of the passion and spontaneity and chemistry of certain key individuals?" Harold Prince wrote the foreword to the book.
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...
and at regional theaters throughout the country. He is a former artistic director of the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park and the founder/artistic director of The Chelsea Theater Center
Chelsea Theater Center
The Chelsea Theater Center was a not-for-profit theater company founded in 1965 by Robert Kalfin, a graduate of the Yale School of Drama. It opened its doors in a church in the Chelsea district of Manhattan, then moved to the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1968, where it was in residence for ten...
.
Biography
Robert Zangwill Kalfin was born in 1933 to a Jewish couple of Russian descent. Alfred Kalfin was a cabinetmaker in England until shortly after his 18th birthday, when he moved to the United States and went into real estate. Hilda Kalfin taught kindergarten. Robert has a sister, Eleanor Royte, three years younger.The Kalfins shared a respect for the arts, particularly music, and they provided piano lessons and visits to concerts and opera. Kalfin's maternal grandmother wrote and recited poetry, worked with amateur theater groups, and loved to sing and folk dance.
Kalfin attended Alfred University
Alfred University
Alfred University is a small, comprehensive university in the Village of Alfred in Western New York, USA, an hour and a half south of Rochester and two hours southeast of Buffalo. Alfred has an undergraduate population of around 2,000, and approximately 300 graduate students...
, where he majored in psychology and became involved with the drama club. He received an MFA from the Yale School of Drama
Yale School of Drama
The Yale School of Drama is a graduate professional school of Yale University providing training in every discipline of the theatre: acting, design , directing, dramaturgy and dramatic criticism, playwriting, stage management, sound design, technical design and production, and theater...
in 1957.
Career
Although Kalfin has worked as a freelance director on and off Broadway, he is best known as the founder/artistic director of the Chelsea Theater CenterChelsea Theater Center
The Chelsea Theater Center was a not-for-profit theater company founded in 1965 by Robert Kalfin, a graduate of the Yale School of Drama. It opened its doors in a church in the Chelsea district of Manhattan, then moved to the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1968, where it was in residence for ten...
.
In the early 1960s, New York's commercial Off-Broadway was ending its golden years. There were very few not-for-profit theaters in New York, but funding was becoming available, both from the government and private corporations. Kalfin had long dreamed of starting his own theater. This was the time.
Kalfin wanted to develop a non-profit theater whose work was as professional and polished as the most heavily backed commercial productions and as daring as commercial Off-Broadway had been in earlier days, an institution that resembled the great European subsidized theaters. With George Bari, who had been a stage manager, and David Long, who had been a company manager, he founded the Chelsea Theater Center in the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan in 1965.
Kalfin produced his first season in St Peter's, an Episcopal Church, with a large adjoining Parish Hall that had been converted into a gymnasium. The Chelsea later moved to the Church of the Holy Apostles. Both were in lower Manhattan. After conflicts at each church, the Chelsea became the resident theater of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, from 1968-1978.
With the move, Kalfin acquired two new partners. Michael David
Michael David (producer)
Michael David is a Broadway producer, the co-founder of and a partner in Dodger Theatricals. His productions on Broadway include Jersey Boys, The Farnsworth Invention, The Secret Garden, Into the Woods, and the revial of The Music Man....
had studied theater administration at Yale; he currently produces on Broadway as a partner in Dodger Theatricals. Burl Hash had studied stagecraft at Yale and could find imaginative ways to construct scenery on the theater's tight budget.
In Brooklyn, Kalfin's theater developed a loyal audience and won raves from critics. During these ten years, however, new theaters opened, funding sources decreased, and costs rose. Many non-profit theaters became cautious. Kalfin and his partners continued to do cutting-edge work.
When black separatism threatened integration attempts in the late 60's, these three white producers staged some of the first black militant plays. When women began declaring independence from male-run institutions, these men produced feminist plays. Chelsea asked Jewish audiences to appreciate a play showing the humanity of a Nazi sympathizer, invited young audiences to understand the tribulations of old age, and gave seniors a close view of youth culture. Believing that theater reflects "shared universal experiences," Kalfin routinely put artists from different cultural and aesthetic backgrounds on the same project.
Glenn Close
Glenn Close
Glenn Close is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and...
, Frank Langella
Frank Langella
-Early life:Langella, an Italian American, was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, the son of Angelina and Frank A. Langella Sr., a business executive who was the president of the Bayonne Barrel and Drum Company. Langella attended Washington Elementary School and Bayonne High School in Bayonne...
, Christopher Lloyd
Christopher Lloyd
Christopher Allen Lloyd is an American actor. He is best known for playing Emmett Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy, Uncle Fester in The Addams Family and Addams Family Values, and Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He played Reverend Jim Ignatowski in the television series Taxi and more...
, and Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...
were among the artists who worked for minimum salaries to be part of the Chelsea experience. In 1973, Broadway director/producer Hal Prince
Hal Prince
Harold Smith Prince is an American theatrical producer and director associated with many of the best-known Broadway musical productions of the past half-century...
came to Brooklyn to stage the revival of Candide (operetta)
Candide (operetta)
Candide is an operetta with music composed by Leonard Bernstein, based on the novella of the same name by Voltaire. The operetta was first performed in 1956 with a libretto by Lillian Hellman; but since 1974 it has been generally performed with a book by Hugh Wheeler which is more faithful to...
, which had been a Broadway flop. The audience sat inside, under, and around parts of the Candide set. When the show returned to Broadway, the producers gutted the theater to recreate the Chelsea's environmental set, designed by Eugene Lee. This meant fewer seats and less revenue, but it was an artistic triumph.
Critics often said Kalfin and his colleagues stretched the boundaries of theater. Spectators subscribed to seasons before they knew what plays the Chelsea producers would do.
In 1978, Kalfin responded to a growing financial crisis by moving the Chelsea to Manhattan, where it took up residence in the Westside Arts Theater, and later the New Federal Theater. It folded in 1986.
Kalfin has continued to direct at regional, Off-Broadway, and Broadway theaters.
Kalfin's life and work are documented in Chelsea on the Edge: The Adventures of an American Theater
Chelsea on the Edge: The Adventures of an American Theater
Chelsea on the Edge: The Adventures of an American Theater is a book by Davi Napoleon about the onstage triumphs and the offstage turmoil at the Chelsea Theater Center of Brooklyn...
, a book by Davi Napoleon
Davi Napoleon
Davi Napoleon, aka Davida Skurnick is an American theater historian and critic. She is a theater columnist for The Faster Times, an online newspaper, and a regular contributor to Live Design, a monthly magazine about entertainment design and designers...
. The book puts the Chelsea in the context of American society, mainstream and counter-cultural, during the 1960s and 1970's and is the story of how the funding crisis in the arts impacted theater. It has gotten a following within the theater community both because it is one of the first in-depth studies of regional theater and because of its dramatic structure and novelistic narrative.
"Bob Kalfin is a unique man and Chelsea on the Edge is a fascinating account of the unique theatre he created," said Frank Langella. Glenn Close commented that the book interested her because it explores group dynamics and attempted to answer the question: "How does one maintain an organization that is created out of the passion and spontaneity and chemistry of certain key individuals?" Harold Prince wrote the foreword to the book.
Productions Directed
- "Five Days" by Henry Zeiger, 1965, Off-Broadway
- "One of Us Has Been Ignited" and "The Furthermost Finger of Filmore" by Jerome Max, 1966, Off-Broadway
- "Junebug Graduates Tonight" by Archie Shepp, 1966, Off-Broadway
- "My Friend Weissman is Back" by Robert Bonnard, 1968, Off-Broadway
- "Christophe" by John Gay, 1968, Off-Broadway
- "The Judas Applause," by Gary Munn, 1969, Off-Broadway
- "Things to Hear, Things to See," book and lyrics by Steve Brown, music by Clay Boland, 1969, Off-Broadway
- "The Universal Nigger" by Gordon Porterfield, 1970, Off-Broadway
- "Tarot" by Joe McCord, 1970, Off-Broadway
- "Kaddish" by Alan Ginsberg, 1972, Off-Broadway
- "Sunset" by Isaac Babel, 1972, Off-Broadway
- "Total Eclipse" by Christopher Hampton, 1974, Off-Broadway
- "Yentl the Yeshiva Boy," by Isaac Bashevis Singer, adapted by Leah Napolin, 1975 Off-Broadway; 1975, Broadway
- "Polly" by John Gay, adapted by Kalfin, 1975, Off-Broadway
- "The Prince of Homburg" by Heinrich von Kliest, 1977. Kalfin directed this the following year for the PBS series, Theater in America. Available on DVD. With Frank Langella as the prince.
- "Happy End" Elisabeth Hauptmann, adapted by Michael Feingold, lyrics by Bertolt Brecht, music by Kurt Weill, 1977 Off-Broadway; 1980 Broadway. With Meryl Streep and Christopher Lloyd in starring roles. * "Old Man Joseph and his Family" by Romulus Linney, 1978, Off-Broadway
- "Strider: The Story of a Horse" by Mark Rozovsky, adapted from Leo Tolstoy's story, English stage version by Kalfin and Steve Brown, music by Rozovsky, S. Vetking, and Norman Berman. 1979, Off-Broadway; 1980 Broadway
- "Hijinks!: A Musical Entertainment" by Robert Kalfin, Steve Brown, and John McKinney; Based on an idea by William Bolcom, David Brooks, Robert Kalfin and Arnold Weinstein. 1981, Off-Broadway
- "Shanghai Gesture" by John Colton. 2009. Off-Broadway.
External links
- http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?ID=15256 Robert Kalfin at the Internet Broadway Database
- http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?ID=20166 The Chelsea Theater Center at the Internet Broadway Database
- http://www.njrep.org/bios/kalfinbio.htm Program biography at the New Jersey Repertory Company
- http://livedesignonline.com/mag/show_business_eugene_lee/ Article about designer Eugene Lee, with references to some of his scenic work for Robert Kalfin at the Chelsea Theater Center.
- http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?query=Robert+Kalfin&srchst=p Articles about Robert Kalfin from The New York Times.