The Soul of the American Actor

INTERVIEWS with ARTISTS

BEN VEREEN

JEANINE TESORI

PSALMAYENE 24

SYLVIA MCNAIR

MICHAEL McELROY

DEIDRE KINAHAN

BOB ARI

PAUL TAZEWELL

PATRICIA ROZARIO

NANCY RHODES

MAIA DANZIGER

EARL “PEANUTT” MONTGOMERY

WILLIE RUFF

DENNIS D’AMICO

GRACE CACHOCHA

KAREN SAILLANT

JENNIFER HORNE

JEANIE THOMPSON

ROBERT PERRY

WAYNE SIDES

JAMIE LEE McMAHAN

“The meaning of life is to see.”
- Hui Neng

“Deep at the center of my being there is an infinite well of gratitude. I now allow this gratitude to fill my heart, my body, my mind, my consciousness, my very being. This gratitude radiates out from me in all directions, touching everything in my world, and returns to me as more to be grateful for. The more gratitude I feel, the more I am aware that the supply is endless.”
- Louise L. Hay

“Love is stronger than differences. We all live on the same planet. We walk on the same earth. We breathe the same air. No matter where I was born, no matter what color skin I have or what religion I was raised to believe in, everything and everyone is connected to this one life. I no longer choose to prejudge others, to feel either superior or inferior. I choose equality – to have warm, loving, open communication with every member of my Earthly family. I am a member of the earth community.”
- Louise L. Hay

“Enlightenment is always there. Small enlightenment will bring great enlightenment. If you breathe in and are aware that you are alive – that you can touch the miracle of being alive – then that is a kind of enlightenment.”
- Thich Nhat Hanh

“We have to continue to learn. We have to be open. And we have to be ready to release our knowledge in order to come to a higher understanding of reality.”
- Thich Nhat Hanh

“Many people are alive but don't touch the miracle of being alive.”
- Thich Nhat Hanh

“Mindfulness helps you go home to the present. And every time you go there and recognize a condition of happiness that you have, happiness comes.”
- Thich Nhat Hanh

“Life is available only in the present. That is why we should walk in such a way that every step can bring us to the here and the now.”
- Thich Nhat Hanh

“Every thought you produce, anything you say, any action you do, it bears your signature.”
- Thich Nhat Hanh

“A frequent change of role, and of the lighter sort – especially such as one does not like forcing one's self to use the very utmost of his ability in the performance of – is the training requisite for a mastery of the actor’s art.”
- Edwin Booth

“But Nature cast me for the part she found me best fitted for, and I have had to play it, and must play it till the curtain falls.”
- Edwin Booth

“If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things in nature have a message you understand, Rejoice, for your soul is alive.”
- Eleanora Duse

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action--and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is; nor how valuable it is; nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly of the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching, and makes us more alive than the others.”
- Martha Graham to Agnes de Mille

"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”
- Harriet Tubman

“Harvey” by Mary Chase
– painting by Maribee

“Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is watching.”
- C.S. Lewis

“Be silly. Be honest. Be kind.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our Artists Our Soul

Artists Pictures

The artists pictures on the front page at the top are from left to right:

Vinie Burrows, Cherry Jones, Tisa Chang, Karen De Mauro, Donna Murphy, Kevin Kline, Marian Seldes, Ronald Rand, Harold Clurman, Stella Adler, Andre De Shields, Marlon Brando.

These Are the Many Artists
Who Have Appeared Within Our Pages Of
“THE SOUL OF THE AMERICAN ACTOR”

ESSAYS by

Gregory Abels, Jacob Adler, Stella Adler, Edward Albee, Jane Alexander, Glen Alterman, Robert Anderson, Pat Angelin, Ivanka Apostolova, David Amram, Alicia Arrizon, Andrei Malaev-Babel, Harold Baldridge, Eugenio Barba, Julian Beck, Jason Bennett, Eric Bentley, Sarah Bernhardt, Prabhath Bhaskaran, Kathryn Bild, Theodore Bikel, Cheryl Black, Harold Bloom, Augusto Boal, Anne Bogart, Richard Bolaslavsky, Lauren Bond, Jim Bonney, Edwin Booth, Tara Bracco, David Bridel, Alida Brill, Robert Brustein, Vinie Burrows, Experience Byron, Heather Carver, Arthur Cantor, Dr. Ellen J. Carni, Morris Carnovsky, Joseph Chaikin, Tisa Chang, Jill Charles, Tyler A. Chase, Sukla Chatterjee, Stephen Cheng, Harold Clurman, Lola Cohen, Susan Grace Cohen, Barbara Colton, Emilie Conrad, David Crawford, David Crespy, Hume Cronyn, Merce Cunningham, Grenville Cuyler, Hannah Dalton, Beverly Davis, Karen De Mauro, Colleen Dewhurst, David J. Diamond, Glenda Dickerson, Elizabeth Dixon, Eva Dorrepaal, Faye E. Dudden, Isadora Duncan, Robert Ellermann, Clive Elliot, William Esper, Karen Eterovich, Zelda Fichandler, Hallie Flanigan, Mary Fleisher, Richard Foreman, Rena Fraden, Gene Frankel, Mario Fratti, Rinda Frye, Frank Gagliano, Jack Garfein, Kathryn Gately, Rose Lee Goldberg, Gregg Goldston, Dr. Asish Kumar Goswani, Rudy Gray, Jerzy Grotowski, Judith Gruber, Uta Hagen, Carl Harms, Julie Harris, Gabriel Hershman, Louise Hirschfeld, Sandra Hochman, Ellen Holly, Molly Hughes, LeeAnn Hutchinson, Earle Hyman, Joseph Jefferson, Ontono Johnson, James Earl Jones, Barbara Kahn, Marjorie Kanter, David Kaplan, Grace Kiley, Cheryl King, Woodie King, Jr., Oleg Kissilev, Terry Knickerbocker, Rex Knowles, Karen Kohlhaas, Ed Kovens, Grant Kretchik, Sherry Landrum, Linda Larson, Jessica Lawrence, Eva Le Gallienne, Dawn Lerman, Marcia Lesser, Bobby Lewis, Stuart W. Little, Doug Lory, Laurence Luckinbill, James Lundstrom, Eugenia Macer-Story, Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj, Judith Malina, Elaine Makovska, Paul Mann, Jayalath Manorathna, Tracey Moore-Marable, Charles Marowitz, Clare Maxwell, Thomas McKnight, Edith Meeks, Sanford Meisner, Pamela Jamruszka Mencher, Arthur Miller, J. Michael Miller, Rachel J. Miller, Mme. Peff Modelski, Eric Morris, George Morrison, Stephan Murrow, Tom Oppenheim, Petronia Paley, Robert Patterson, Vic Perillo, Shauneille Perry, Lenard Petit, Erwin Piscator, Jack Poggi, Christina Pratt, Carol Fox Prescott, Nikos Psacharopoulos, Ronald Rand, Bill Reed, Andrea Reese, Allan Rich, Paula Riley, Sandy Rochelle, Rod Rodgers, Joanna Rotte, Franco Ruffini, Alberto Sandoval Sanchez, Robert Karoly Sarlos, William Saroyan, Richard Schechner, Louis Scheeder, Alan Schneider, Bessie Schoenberg, Terry Schreiber, Norman B. Schwartz, Thurman E. Scott, Marian Seldes, Diane Shalet, Helen Sheehy, Stanley Allen Sherman, Robert E. Sherwood, Sande Shurin, Roger Hendricks Simon, Fay Simpson, Anna Deavere Smith, Wendy Smith, Shepard Sobel, Kevin Spacey, Alice Spivak, Ruth St. Denis, Robert Staffanson, Gayle Stahlhuth, John Strasberg, Lee Strasberg, Tim Stevenson, Tadasha Suzuki, Jeffrey Sweet, Jerry Tallmer, Laurette Taylor, Penny Templeton, Vijay Tendulkar, Ellen Terry, Caroline Thomas, Anne Tobias, Marilise Tronto, Yevgeny Vakhtangov, Jean-Claude van Itallie, Roberto Gutierrez Varea, Stuart Vaughan, Tom Visiliades, Polly O. Walker, Wendy Ward, Thomas Waites, Stuart Warmflash, Eileen B. Weiss, Bill Wesbrooks, Mark Weston, Jeremy Whelan, Loyd Williamson, Walt Witcover, Bernard White, Robert Whitehead, Dr. Roslyn Wilder, L. Martina Young, Shane Ann Younts, Robert Yowell, David Zema, Joanne Zipay, Stuart J. Zully

INTERVIEWS
conducted by Ronald Rand with:

ACTORS

F. Murray Abraham, Ernest Abuba, Mason Adams, Tom Aldredge, Terry Alexander, Bob Ari, Matthew Arkin, Bob Balaban, Alec Baldwin, Gerry Bamman, Theodore Bikel, Philip Bosco, Perry Bruskin, Larry Bryggman, Paul Butler, John Cariani, Len Cariou, Kevin Conway, Brian Cox, Billy Crudup, Sean Cullen, Michael Cumpsty, Brian D’Arcy James, Ossie Davis, Jeffrey DeMunn, Andre De Shields, Randall Duk Kim, Alvin Epstein, Fyvush Finkel, Arthur French, Ben Gazzara, Spalding Gray, David Greenspan, Joel Grey, George Grizzard, Charles Grodin, George Hannah, Stephen Henderson, Richard Herd, Ken Howard, Ruben Santiago Hudson, Barnard Hughes, Earle Hyman, Ron Cephas Jones, Ty Jones, Dragan Jovičić, Werner Klemperer, Kevin Kline, Len Kluge, Jack Klugman, Marc Kudisch, Stephen Lang, Dan Lauria, Hal Linden, Tony Lo Bianco, Laurence Luckinbill, Juan Maldonado, Peter Maloney, Kevin Mambo, Terrence Mann, David Margulies, Michael Mastro, Michael McElroy, Tom McGowan, Donald Moffat, Stephen Mo Hanan, Brian Murray, Manu Narayan, Greg Naughton, James Naughton, Mark Nelson, Frederick Newmann, Jerry Orbach, John Ortiz, Brad Oscar, Howard W. Overshown, Chuck Patterson, Austin Pendleton, Larry Pine, Christopher Plummer, Bill Pullman, Patrick Quinn, Everett Quinton, Tony Randall, David Rasche, Tony Roberts, Cliff Robertson, John Rothman, Stephen Rowe, John Rubenstein, Jay O. Sanders, Roy Scheider, Armand Schultz, Douglas Stills, Ibrahim Spahić, Lewis J. Stadlin, David Strathairn, Ben Vereen, Eli Wallach, Fritz Weaver, Peter Weller, Frank T. Wells, Franklin Westbrooks, Bernard White, Joseph Wiseman, Marc Wolf, Frank Wood, Harris Yulin, Chip Zien, Louis Zorich

ACTRESSES

Cynthia Adler, Mary Alice, Selma Alisphasic, Nicole Ansari, Lucie Arnaz, Elizabeth Ashley, Jayne Atkinson, Adrienne Barbeau, Stephanie Berry, Trezana Beverly, Audra Blaser, Claire Bloom, Phoebe Brand, Elaine Bromka, Vinie Burrows, Kate Burton, Joanne Camp, Myra Carter, Shami Chaikin, Kathleen Chalfant, Tisa Chang, Carol Channing, Lynne Charnay, Lisa Chess, Lynn Cohen, Rosalyn Coleman, Joan Copeland, Vinette Cotter, Veanne Cox, Lindsay Crouse, Dalia Davi, Ruby Dee, Mihaela Dragan, Olympia Dukakis, Laura Esterman, Karen Eterovich, Tovah Feldshuh, Jennifer Fouché, Elizabeth Franz, Rita Fredricks, Penny Fuller, Rita Gam, Joanna Gleason, Lee Grant, Marcia Gay Harden, Valerie Harper, Kitty Carlisle Hart, Julie Harris, Eileen Heckert, Vy Higginsen, Anita Hollander, Ellen Holly, Celeste Holm, Jayne Houdyshell, Kim Hunter, Angelica Huston, Judith Ivey, Anne Jackson, Ebony Jo-Ann, Cherry Jones, Karen Kandel, Carol Lawrence, Priscilla Lopez, Oni Faida Lampley, Ruth Malaczech, Judith Malina, Zana Marjanovic, Masha Mason, Jan Maxwell, Mary McCann, Rue McClanahan, Ellen McLaughlin, Barbara Montgomery, Donna Murphy, Patricia Neal, Andrus Nichols, Anny Occhiogrosso, Lola Pashalinski, Tonya Pinkins, Anne Pitoniak, Portia, Linda Purl, Phylicia Rashad, Andrea Reese, Chita Rivera, Laila Robins, Jana Robbins, Marian Seldes, Sloane Shelton, Sylvia Sidney, Libby Skala, Zypora Spasiman, Jean Stapleton, Maureen Stapleton, Frances Sternhagen, Angelica Torn, Maria Tucci, Brenda Vacarro, Silvana Vienne, Angela Vitale, Betsy von Furstenberg, Roberta Wallach, Elizabeth Wilson, Mary Louise Wilson, Charlayne Woodward, Jennifer Woodward, Ching Valdes-Aran, Kate Valk, Karen Ziemba

ARTISTIC DIRECTORS

Joseph Adler, Andy Anselmo, Jonathan Bank, Seth Barrish, Elise Bernhardt, Robert Brustein, Rene Buch, Ben Cameron, Casey Childs, Susan Claassen, Mirian Colon, J.C. Compton, Ellie Covan, Roger Croucher, Rachel Dickstein, John Eisner, David Ellenstein, Sheldon Epps, Max Ferra, Crystal Field, Joseph Graves, Judith Jarosz, James Jennings, Sabra Jones, Ricardo Kahn, Alicia Kaplan, Woodie King, Jr., Ralph Lewis, Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj, Julia Miles, Charlotte Moore, Edith O’Hara, Tina Packer, Karen Paisley, Ralph Pena,Tina Ramirez, Penelope Reed, Hanon Reznikov, Nancy Rhodes, Mark Russell, Jean Marie Simpson, Kate Snodgrass, Shepard Sobel, Isabelle Stevenson, Ellen Stewart, Dr. Barbara Ann Teer, Laurie Uprichard, Douglas Turner Ward, Stuart Warmflash, Charles Weldon, Joe Weston, George C. White, Marlies Yearby, Joanne Zipay

ARTISTS

Martha Carpenter, Al Hirschfeld, Everett Raymond Kinstler, James MacMahon, Michael Shane Neal, Tim Stevenson

CHOREOGRAPHERS

Hope Clarke, Jacques d’Amboise, Lydia Diamond, Katherine Dunham, Eliot Feld, Gina Gibney, Sandra Stratton-Gonzalez, Anna Halprin, Geoffrey Holder, Alonzo King, Pearl Lang, Meredith Monk, Mary Overlie, David Parsons, Igal Perry, Tommy Tune

CLOWNS

Barry Lubin, David Shiner

COLLEGE PRESIDENTS

Dr. Jo Ann C. McDowell

COMEDIANS

Jackie Mason

COMPOSERS/SONGWRITERS

Dennis D’Amico, Ervin Drake, Marvin Hamlisch, Hartmut von Lieres, Earl “Peanutt” Montgomery, Melvin van Peebles, Charles Strouse, Jeanine Tesori, Maury Yeston

CONDUCTORS

Dr. Ashley William Joseph, Robert Staffanson

COSTUME DESIGNERS

Alvin Colt, Paul Tazewell

DANCERS

Lori Belilove, Sandra Cameron, Lucinda Childs, Farah Deen, Carmen de Lavallade, Maria Helena Pinto, Pilar Rioja, Tatiana Ruiz, Janet Wong

DIRECTORS

Billie Allen, Roy Arias, Sujatha Balakrishnan, Anne Bogart, Daryl Boling, Jay Broad, Joseph Chaikin, Michael Johnson-Chase, Ping Chong, Karin Coonrod, Miriam Cyr, Clinton Turner Davis, Bill D’Elia, Louis Fantasia, Amy Feinberg, Sharon Fogarty, Jack Garfein,Tony Giodano, Andre Gregory, Sachin Gupta, Terese Hayden, Tonya S. Holly, Michael Kahn, Marshall Mason, Dijana Milošević, Jill Navarre, Harold Prince,Theodore Mann, Chuck Maryan, Christopher Martin, John McCormack,Tom O’Horgan, Shauneille Perry, David Pressman, Michael Pressman, Sachithra Rahubadda, Jamie Richards, Lloyd Richards, Nancy Rhodes, Larry Sacharow, Gene Saks, Karen Saillant, Andrei Serban, Ed Sherin, Avra Sidiropoulou, Arthur Storch, Elizabeth Van Dyke, Stuart Vaughan, David Warren, Jayne Wenger, Talvin Wilks, Jerry Zaks

EDUCATORS

Grace Gachocha, Zainal Abd Latiff, Kevin Kimani Kahuro, Robert Perry, Mohammed Safeer, Dr. Niranjan Vanalli

FIGHT DIRECTORS

B.H. Barry

MIME ARTISTS

Gregg Goldston

MUSICIANS

David Amram, Yi-Min Cai, Stephanie Chase, Karen Drucker, Katie Down, Ian Finkel, Kerry Gilbert, Jake Landers, Luna Cholong Kang, Eddie Martin, Jim Seales, Willie Ruff, Dr. Walter J. Turnbull, Eugenia Zukerman

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Wayne Sides

PLAYWRIGHTS & LYRICISTS

Edward Albee, Deborah Asiimwe, Leslie Ayvazian, Amiri Baraka, Neena Beber, Eric Bentley, Lee Blessing, Marshall Brickman, Ed Bullins, Kia Corthron, Michael Cristofer, Nilo Cruz, Christopher Durang, Horton Foote, Richard Foreman, Maria Irene Fornes, Mario Fratti, Michael Frayn, Frank Gagliano, Larry Gelbart, Rudy Gray, John Guare, A. R. Gurney, Sheldon Harnick, David Hirson, Michael Hollinger, Israel Horowitz, Tina Howe, David Ives, Julie Jensen, Odile Gakire Katese, Lyle Kessler, Deidre Kinahan, Kate Bernegut Kogut, Arthur Kopit, Arthur Laurents, David Lindsay-Abaire, Romulus Linney, Eduardo Machado, Donald Margulies, Dawson Moore, Richard Nelson, John Ford Noonan, Irene O’Garden, Carmen Rivera, Elaine Romero, Murray Schisgal, Budd Schulberg, Betty Shamieh, John Patrick Shanley, S.M. Shephard-Massat, Saviana Stanescu, Joseph Stein, Peter Stone, Jeffrey Sweet, Joan Vail Thorne, Elise Thoron, Jean Claude van-Itallie, Mixkaela Villalon, Bridgette Wimberly, William Yellow Robe, Jr.

POETS

Jennifer Horne, Apriana Taylor, Jeanine Thompson, Sir Derek Walcott

PUPPETEERS

Per Brahe, Craig Marin

SCULPTORS

Carolyn Palmer

SET DESIGNERS

Ming Cho Lee, Robin Wagner

SINGERS

Julie Budd, Karen Drucker, Sylvia McNair, Marty Raybon

PRODUCERS

Katy Lipson

TEACHERS

Gregory Abels, Harold Baldridge, Ted Bardy, Susan Batson, Alan Brody, Suzanne Burgoyne, Matthew Corozine, Elizabeth Dixon, William Esper, Maggie Flanigan, Gene Frankel, Marilyn Fried, David Gideon, Kathryn Gately, Mark Hammer, Michael Howard, Zina Jasper, Peter Jensen, Ed Kovens, Kristin Linklater, Karen Kolhaas, Zainal Abd Latiff, Karen Ludwig, Bennes Mardenn, Monica May, Bob McAndrew, Barbara Mackenzie-Wood, Howard Meyer, J. Michael Miller, Jay O’Callahan, Tom Oppenheim, Janice Orlandi, Caymichael Patten, Robert Patterson, Lenard Petit, Richard G. Poole, Jr., Raul Rodriguez, Alec Rubin, Irma Sandrey, Richard Scanlon, Hank Schob, Terry Schreiber, Diane Shalet, Paul Sills, Larry Silverberg, Roger Hendricks Simon, Larry Singer, Lynn Singer, Alice Spivak, Elly Stone, John Strasberg, Penny Templeton, Caroline Thomas, Richard Termine, Tom Waites, Loyd Williamson, Walt Witcover

TV/RADIO HOSTS

Joe Franklin, Steven H. Scheuer

WRITERS

Harold Bloom, Leslie Sarah Carroll, Elie Wiesel

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"It is a law of life that man cannot live for himself alone. The world's problems are also our personal problems. Health is achieved through maintaining our personal truth in a balanced relation of love to the rest of the world. No expression is more emblematic of this relation than the creative act which we call art, and none more than the theatre. The theatre, to be fully understood and appreciated, must be seen as a manifestation of this process of interchange between society and the individual. It must be judged as a continuous development of groups of individuals within society, becoming richer, acquiring greater force and value as it grows with the society. Only in this way can the theatre nourish us." - Harold Clurman