Richard Hamburger

Last updated

Richard Hamburger
Born1951 (age 71–72)
Manhattan, New York City, New York United States
Occupation Theatre director
Website Richard Hamburger official Web site

Richard Hamburger (born 1951) is an American theater director. He has directed an extensive range of plays in theaters nationwide, and from 1987 to 1992 was Artistic Director of the Portland Stage Company before being named the first Artistic Director of the Dallas Theater Center (DTC) in 1992. He left the DTC in 2007, and continues to direct plays in theaters nationwide.

Contents

Early life and career

Hamburger was born and raised in Manhattan in New York City, New York. [1] He obtained his high school diploma from The Putney School in Putney, Vermont, in 1969, [2] and his bachelor's degree in drama from the Yale School of Drama at Yale University in 1972. [3] Hamburger next received formal training as a clown and spent a year as a featured clown with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. [4]

Hamburger worked at a number of theaters and directed plays in a wide range of venues between 1974 and 1986, including The Acting Company, The American Place Theatre, Circle in the Square Theatre School, Great Lakes Theater Festival, the Yale Repertory Theatre, and the Juilliard Theatre Center [5] (where he also taught drama). [6] The New York Times praised his direction of Thomas Strelich's Neon Psalms at The American Place Theater in 1986, saying its "staging subtly veers away from overstatement." [7]

He was appointed the Artistic Director of the Portland Stage Company in Portland, Maine, in 1987. He directed a wide range of avant-garde productions, experimental plays, and modern theater while at Portland Stage, including Mac Wellman's Terminal Hip in the 1989-1990 season (which later won an Obie Award) [5] and Erik Ehn's Wolf at the Door in the 1990-1991 season. [8]

Dallas Theater Center

In 1992, Hamburger was named the fifth Artistic Director of the Dallas Theater Center. [9] His philosophy at the DTC was that the company should feature "fabulous young writers exploring theatrical forms." [5] Having grown up in New York City, and spending much of his professional life there or in Portland, he never learned to drive a car. He walked, bicycled, or took a taxi cab. "I learned to drive in Dallas," he said, and purchased his first automobile. [1]

While at the DTC, Hamburger directed or produced several notable plays, including Topdog/Underdog (which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2002) and Anna in the Tropics (which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2003), both in 2004. [10] His 1999 production of South Pacific won national praise for its design and production, and was called "a virtual reinvention of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical" by D Magazine . [1] [11] D Magazine also highly praised his 2001 production of Twelfth Night and 2006 direction of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof . [1]

Preferring to hire New York City actors rather than local talent, he dissolved the acting company that had been assembled by Adrian Hall, DTC artistic director from 1983 to 1989, and mostly retained by Hall's successor, Ken Bryant. [10] [12] His time at the helm of the DTC was not without problems. Staff claimed he was difficult to work for, [13] he staged numerous mediocre shows with production designs imported from other playhouses [13] (most notably A Day in the Death of Joe Egg and The Illusion in the 2005-2006 season), [1] and he hired a director of marketing whose stormy tenure was short and very costly. [13]

Hamburger abruptly left the DTC in August 2006 after 15 years with the company. [13] Hamburger denied that he was forced out, but also admitted that he had clashed with unnamed individuals over several issues (which he also refused to discuss). [1]

Post-DTC work

DTC named Hamburger Artistic Director Emeritus upon his departure, and he moved to New York City. [14] He has continued to direct plays nationwide in a variety of theaters and venues. Among his more notable productions was the 2006-2007 Salzburg Marionette Theatre production of The Sound of Music , which toured Europe; [1] his 2008 direction of Michael Feingold's Japanoir at the Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York City (which Leonard Jacobs of the New York Press praised for its "brisk direction"); [15] and the 2012 production of Curse of the Starving Class for the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (the first time he had ever directed a play by Sam Shepard). [16]

In September 2014, Hamburger was named by the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF) to the 2014-2015 Committee for the Joe A. Callaway Award, the only peer-given award for excellence in direction and choreography in the theater. [17]

Personal life

Hamburger is married to Melissa Cooper, a former performance artist, actress, and playwright who co-founded the Echo Theatre. [4] [14] The couple lives in New York City with their son. [14]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Lakes Theater</span> Theater company in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.

Great Lakes Theater, originally known as the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival, is a professional classic theater company in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1962, Great Lakes is the second-largest regional theater in Northeast Ohio. It specializes in large-cast classic plays with a strong foundation in the works of Shakespeare and features an educational outreach program. The company performs its main stage productions in rotating repertory at the Hanna Theatre in Playhouse Square, which reopened on September 20, 2008. The organization shares a resident company of artists with the Idaho Shakespeare Festival. On its main stage and through its education programs, GLT connects approximately 85,000 adults and students to the classics each season.

Joseph Bernard Fuqua is an American actor, director, instructor and playwright.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Austin Pendleton</span> American actor

Austin Campbell Pendleton is an American actor, playwright, theatre director, and instructor.

A. J. Antoon was an American theatre director. He attended the Yale School of Drama. Beginning in 1971, Antoon directed numerous plays at the New York Shakespeare Festival over a period of nearly 20 years. In 1973, Antoon became one of the few directors to have been nominated for two Tony Awards in the same category in the same year. In addition to winning the Tony Award with one of his nominations, Antoon was also the winner of a Drama Desk Award, a New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, and an Obie Award. His career lasted until 1991; he died less than a year later from AIDS-related lymphoma.

Michael Kahn is an American theater director and drama educator. He has, since 1986, been the artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. He retired from the Shakespeare Theatre in 2019. He held the position of Richard Rodgers Director of the Drama Division of the Juilliard School from 1992 to 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marshall W. Mason</span>

Marshall W. Mason is an American theater director, educator, and writer. Mason founded the Circle Repertory Company in New York City and was artistic director of the company for 18 years (1969–1987). He received an Obie Award for Sustained Achievement in 1983. In 2016, he received the Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theater.

Tazewell Thompson, is an African-American theatre director, the former artistic director of the Westport Country Playhouse (2006–07) in Westport, Connecticut and the Syracuse Stage (1992–95) in New York state. Prior to that he was an assistant director at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. He is the Director of Opera Studies at Manhattan School of Music.

<i>Its a Bird... Its a Plane... Its Superman</i> 1966 Broadway musical based on Superman

It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's Superman is a 1966 musical composed by Charles Strouse, with lyrics by Lee Adams and book by David Newman and Robert Benton. It is based on the comic book character Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and published by DC Comics.

Bill Rauch is an American theatre director. He was named the inaugural artistic director of the Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center in 2018. Currently in development, the Perelman is the final piece of the plan to revitalize the World Trade Center site and will create work which inspires hope.

David Hammond is an American director and acting teacher. He trained for the theatre at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and received his M.F.A. from the Carnegie Mellon University Drama Department. He did his undergraduate studies at Harvard University and graduated magna cum laude with a concentration in Elizabethan literature. He taught at the Juilliard School, the American Conservatory Theater, and the Yale School of Drama and later became the artistic director of the PlayMakers Repertory Company.

Anna Davida Shapiro is an American theater director, was the artistic director of the Steppenwolf Theater Company, and a professor at Northwestern University. Throughout her career, she has directed both the Steppenwolf Theater Company production of August: Osage County (2007) along with its Broadway debut (2008-2009), the Broadway debuts of The Motherfucker with the Hat (2011) and Fish in the Dark (2014), and Broadway revivals of This Is Our Youth and Of Mice and Men, both in 2014. She won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play for her direction of August: Osage County.

Mark Lamos is an American theatre and opera director, producer and actor. Under his direction, Hartford Stage won the 1989 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre and he has been nominated for two other Tonys. He is now Artistic Director of the Westport Country Playhouse.

Matthew Earnest is an American theater director. He has also written plays, as well as adapted plays from novels, non-fiction books, short stories, and essays, and he has translated works in other languages for his direction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Larry Carpenter</span>

Larry Carpenter is an American theatre and television director and producer. In the theatre, he has worked as an artistic director, associate artistic director, a managing director and general manager in both the New York and Regional arenas. He also works as a theatre director and is known primarily for large projects, working on musicals and classical plays equally. In television, he works as a director for New York daytime dramas. He has served as executive vice president of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, the national labor union for professional stage directors and choreographers. He is also a member of the Directors Guild of America PAC.

Matt Shakman is an American film, television, and theatre director, and former child actor. He produced and directed WandaVision and has directed episodes of The Great, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Fargo and Game of Thrones. He is the artistic director of the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, California.

Christopher Ashley is an American stage director. Since 2007, he has been the artistic director of the La Jolla Playhouse.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Moscone</span> American theater director (born 1964)

Jonathan Moscone is an American theater director, and currently the Executive Director of the California Arts Council under Governor Gavin Newsom's administration. Formerly the Chief Producer of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), and artistic director of California Shakespeare Theater in Berkeley and Orinda, California for 16 years, Moscone received the inaugural Zelda Fichandler Award, given by the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation for his transformative work in theater in 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Branden Jacobs-Jenkins</span> American playwright (born 1984)

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is an American playwright. He won the 2014 Obie Award for Best New American Play for his plays Appropriate and An Octoroon. His plays Gloria and Everybody were finalists for the 2016 and 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, respectively. He was named a MacArthur Fellow for 2016.

May Adrales, whose full name is Jocelyn May Divinagracia Adrales, is a Filipina American theatre director and teacher in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Travis Preston</span> American director and theater artist (born 1959)

Travis Preston is an American director and theater artist known for his staging of classical and contemporary operas and plays. He is the Executive Artistic Director of CalArts Center for New Performance as well as Dean of the CalArts School of Theater. His notable works include Prometheus Bound, The Master Builder, Al gran sole carico d'amore, Macbeth, the opening gala performance at Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin, and King Lear. In 2022, he was named to the Artistic Committee of the Wuzhen Theatre Festival in China.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Arbery, Glenn (April 2007). "Why Richard Hamburger Quit DTC". D Magazine. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
  2. ↑ "The Putney School's Annual Report of Gifts 2012-13". The Putney School. 2013. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
  3. ↑ "Around the World" (PDF). Annual Magazine/Yale School of Drama: 57. Fall 2008.
  4. 1 2 Fitzgerald, Nora (June 8, 1995). "Lunatic Fringe". Dallas Observer. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
  5. 1 2 3 Anderson, Porter (April 1992). "Who's Afraid of Richard Hamburger?". D Magazine. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
  6. ↑ Swope, Glenn; Swope, Carole (February 16, 1990). "Juilliard Cast is Great in 'Twelfth Night'". Lewiston Sun Journal. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
  7. ↑ Gussow, Mel (October 23, 1986). "Stage: 'Neon Psalms,' About a Desert Family". The New York Times. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
  8. ↑ Fitzgerald, Nora (April 20, 1995). "Cool Buddha". Dallas Observer. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
  9. ↑ Schiffman, Jean (February 21, 2001). "Shaking Up Cal Shakes: New Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone Brings a Populist Bent and a Musical Approach to the Renowned Bay Area Festival". backstage. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
  10. 1 2 Dallas Theatre Center [ dead link ]
  11. ↑ Jones, Kenneth (May 14, 1999). "Last Chance: Sun Sets on Dallas Theater Center South Pacific May 16". Playbill. Archived from the original on July 14, 2014. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
  12. ↑ Taitte, Lawson (September 20, 2010). "Dallas Actors Return Home for Theater Roles". Dallas News. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
  13. 1 2 3 4 Wilonsky, Robert (August 15, 2006). "Hamburger Done at DTC". Dallas Observer. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
  14. 1 2 3 Taitte, Lawson (July 17, 2012). "Theater: Melissa Cooper Returns to Dallas and to the Stage". Dallas News. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
  15. ↑ Jacobs, Leonard (June 18, 2008). "Theater: Fight to the Finish". New York Press. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
  16. ↑ "'Curse of the Starving Class': Interview with Richard Hamburger". The Wilma Theater. February 8, 2012. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
  17. ↑ Desk, BWW News. "Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation Announces 2014-15 Committee for Joe A. Callaway Award". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved June 27, 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.