Richard Barr : the playwright's producer / David A. Crespy ; with a foreword by Edward Albee.

ISBN:

9780809331413

Title:

Author:

Crespy, David Allison.

Personal Author:

Crespy, David Allison.

Publication Information:

Carbondale : Southern Illinois University Press, 2013.

Physical Description:

1 online resource.

Series:

Theater in the Americas

Theater in the Americas.

Contents:

Introduction: "you have to hock your house: the story of a producer" -- Privilege with a price: Washington, Princeton, and early theatre efforts -- Playing with martians: stage and screen with Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre -- A theatrical warrior: Lieutenant Richard Barr -- Learning the director's craft: stock, Broadway, and City Center -- Broadway beginnings: Ethyl Waters, Ruth Draper, and theatrical collage -- The zoo story: discovering Edward Albee -- Producers at work: on Broadway, off-Broadway, and off-off Broadway -- Experimenting with Edward Malcolm to all over -- Hocking the house: Seascape to Sweeney Todd -- Brightening Broadway's lights: Barr's legacy to the American theatre -- Afterword / Edward Albee.

Local Note:

eBooks on EBSCOhost

Personal Subject:

Barr, Richard.

Barr, Richard. (OCoLC)fst01506951

Subject Term:

Theatrical producers and directors -- United States -- Biography.

BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- General.

PERFORMING ARTS -- Theater -- Direction & Production.

Theatrical producers and directors. (OCoLC)fst01149443

Electronic books.

Geographic Term:

United States. (OCoLC)fst01204155

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

http://ezproxy.angliss.edu.au/login?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&AN=550417

Publication Date:

2013

Publication Information:

Carbondale : Southern Illinois University Press, 2013.

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
792.0232092	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ONLINE	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

In Richard Barr: The Playwright's Producer , author David A. Crespy investigates the career of one of the theatre's most vivid luminaries, from his work on the film and radio productions of Orson Welles to his triumphant--and final--production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Explored in detail along the way are the producer's relationship with playwright Edward Albee, whose major plays such as A Zoo Story and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf Barr was the first to produce, and his innovative productions of controversial works by playwrights like Samuel Beckett, Terrence McNally, and Sam Shepard. Crespy draws on Barr's own writings on the theatre, his personal papers, and more than sixty interviews with theatre professionals to offer insight into a man whose legacy to producers and playwrights resounds in the theatre world. Also included in the volume are a foreword and an afterword by Edward Albee, a three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and one of Barr's closest associates.

Author Notes

David A. Crespy is professor of playwriting and dramatic literature at the University of Missouri at Columbia. He is the author of Off-Off Broadway Explosion .

Reviews (1)

Choice Review

The publisher's "Theater in the Americas" series is bolstered by this work by Crespy (Univ. of Missouri, Columbia). While less critically engaged than the biographies by Jonathan Chambers on John Howard Lawson in Messiah of the New Technique (CH, Feb'07, 44-3146), or Anne Fletcher's Rediscovering Mordecai Gorelik (2009), Crespy's study nonetheless provides a well-researched exploration of how much Barr did to advance US theater, particularly through his support of now-renowned talents Megan Terry, Sam Shepard, Adrienne Kennedy, and Edward Albee, to name only a few. Crespy does an able job in revealing experiences that shaped Barr's prowess as a producer, including his work with Theater Intime at Princeton and the Army Air Corps's First Motion Picture Unit. The author illustrates the many struggles and successes of this self-taught producer making his way, and he presents Barr at his most passionate, doing almost anything to stage pieces like Mart Crowley's The Boys in the Band and Robert Wilson's I Was Sitting on My Patio. Crespy's prose makes the most impact when he describes the legacy to American theater that grew out of Barr's lengthy association with the League of American Theatres and Producers (now the Broadway League). Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty, and theater professionals. S. R. Irelan Youngstown State University