Dotson Rader

Last updated

Dotson Rader (born July 25, 1942, in Evanston, Illinois) is an American author and playwright who has published four novels and three works of non-fiction as well as the stage play God Looked Away about Tennessee Williams. [1]

Contents

Biography

Initially a student at Columbia University with a side gig as a male hustler, Rader made his way into the elite echelons of the New York City literary scene. During the 1970s, he became the live-in love of the actress Ruth Ford. [2] He is the author of several books, including I Ain't Marchin Anymore, about the on-campus protests and upheaval during the 1960s, the title inspired by the earlier song by Phil Ochs of the same name, and Cry of the Heart, about his long friendship with the famed American playwright Tennessee Williams, which began in the 1950s. [3] [4] [5] For many years Rader has penned features and conducted interviews for Parade magazine. [6] Rader's first play, God Looked Away, about Tennessee Williams, had a six-week trial run at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, California, in 2018 with Al Pacino in the titular role and Judith Light and Garrett Clayton in other featured turns. [7] [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Al Pacino</span> American actor (born 1940)

Alfredo James Pacino is an American actor. Considered one of the greatest and most influential actors of the 20th century, Pacino has received numerous accolades: including an Academy Award, two Tony Awards, and two Primetime Emmy Awards achieving the Triple Crown of Acting. He also received four Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and been honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2001, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2007, the National Medal of Arts in 2011, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tennessee Williams</span> American playwright (1911–1983)

Thomas Lanier Williams III, known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three foremost playwrights of 20th-century American drama.

<i>The Rose Tattoo</i> Play by Tennessee Williams

The Rose Tattoo is a three-act play written by Tennessee Williams in 1949 and 1950; after its Chicago premiere on December 29, 1950, he made further revisions to the play for its Broadway premiere on February 2, 1951, and its publication by New Directions the following month. A film adaptation was released in 1955. The Rose Tattoo tells the story of an Italian-American widow in Mississippi who has withdrawn from the world after her husband's death and expects her daughter to do the same.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terrence McNally</span> American playwright (1938–2020)

Terrence McNally was an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. Described as "the bard of American theater" and "one of the greatest contemporary playwrights the theater world has yet produced," McNally was the recipient of five Tony Awards. He won the Tony Award for Best Play for Love! Valour! Compassion! and Master Class and the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for Kiss of the Spider Woman and Ragtime, and received the 2019 Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement. He was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1996, and he also received the Dramatists Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011 and the Lucille Lortel Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2018, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the highest recognition of artistic merit in the United States. His other accolades included an Emmy Award, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, four Drama Desk Awards, two Lucille Lortel Awards, two Obie Awards, and three Hull-Warriner Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Cazale</span> American actor (1935–1978)

John Holland Cazale was an American actor. He appeared in five films over seven years, all of which were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture: The Godfather (1972), The Conversation (1974), The Godfather Part II (1974), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), and The Deer Hunter (1978), with the two Godfather films and The Deer Hunter winning. Cazale started as a theater actor in New York City, ranging from regional, to off-Broadway, to Broadway acting alongside Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, and Sam Waterston. Cazale soon became one of Hollywood's premier character actors, starting with his role as the doomed, weak-minded Fredo Corleone opposite longtime friend Al Pacino in Francis Ford Coppola's film The Godfather and its 1974 sequel, as well as Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon. In 1977, Cazale was diagnosed with lung cancer, but he chose to complete his role in The Deer Hunter. He died shortly after, in New York City on March 13, 1978.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Betty Garrett</span> American actress, comedian, singer and dancer (1919–2011)

Betty Garrett was an American actress, comedian, singer and dancer. She originally performed on Broadway, and was then signed to a film contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. She appeared in several musical films, then returned to Broadway and made guest appearances on several television series.

John Henry Lahr is an American theater critic and writer. From 1992 to 2013, he was a staff writer and the senior drama critic at The New Yorker. He has written more than twenty books related to theater. Lahr has been called "one of the greatest biographers writing today".

J.B. is a 1958 play written in free verse by American playwright and poet Archibald MacLeish, and is a modern-day retelling of the story of the biblical figure Job. The play is about J.B., a devout millionaire with a happy domestic life whose life is ruined. The play went through several incarnations before it was finally published. MacLeish began the work in 1953 as a one-act production, but within three years, had expanded it to a full, three-act manuscript.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe Cino</span> American theatrical producer

Joseph Cino, was an Italian-American theatre producer. The Off-Off-Broadway theatre movement is generally credited to have begun at Cino's Caffe Cino in the West Village of Manhattan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruth Ford</span> American actress and model (1911–2009)

Ruth Ford was an American actress and model. Her brother was the bohemian surrealist Charles Henri Ford. Their parents owned or managed hotels in the American South, and the family regularly moved.

<i>Minskys</i>

Minsky's is a musical by Bob Martin (book), Charles Strouse (music), and Susan Birkenhead (lyrics), and is loosely based on the 1968 movie The Night They Raided Minsky's.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthew Cowles</span> American actor (1944–2014)

Matthew Cowles was an American actor and playwright.

<i>Starlift</i> 1951 film by Roy Del Ruth

Starlift is a 1951 American musical film released by Warner Bros. starring Doris Day, Gordon MacRae, Virginia Mayo, Dick Wesson, and Ruth Roman. It was directed by Roy Del Ruth and written by John D. Klorer and Karl Kamb, from a story by Klorer. The film was made during the beginning of the Korean War and centers on a U.S. Air Force flyer's wish to meet a film star, and her fellow stars' efforts to perform for injured men at the air force base.

<i>In Masks Outrageous and Austere</i>

In Masks Outrageous and Austere is the final full-length play of Tennessee Williams, written perhaps as early as 1970, but chiefly between 1978 and the fall of 1982. The play’s literary roots for characters and situations can be found in Williams’ 1945 short story "Tent Worms". The play title is taken from a line in Elinor Wylie's poem "Let No Charitable Hope."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Actors Studio</span> Drama organization in New York City

The Actors Studio is a membership organization for professional actors, theatre directors and playwrights located on West 44th Street in Hell's Kitchen, New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Garrett Clayton</span> American actor and singer

Gary Michael "Garrett" Clayton is an American actor and singer. He is known for portraying Tanner in the 2013 Disney Channel movie Teen Beach Movie and its 2015 sequel Teen Beach 2, and other film, television, and stage roles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Al Pacino on stage and screen</span> Catalog of performances by American actor Al Pacino

Al Pacino is an American screen and stage actor. His film debut was in 1969 with the comedy-drama film Me, Natalie. He then had his first lead role in the 1971 drama film The Panic in Needle Park. The following year, he played Michael Corleone in the crime film The Godfather, a role he reprised in the sequels The Godfather Part II (1974) and The Godfather Part III (1990). For his role in the 1973 film Serpico, where he played Frank Serpico, he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama. In 1983, he starred as Tony Montana in the crime drama film Scarface, which is considered one of the greatest gangster films ever made and regarded as a cult classic.

The Man With Blond Hair is a play by Norman Krasna based on a true story. Although Krasna became better known for comedy this was a drama; the writer later said that he "really wrote" the play "to win the Nobel Peace Prize". The play only ran for 7 performances on Broadway. This failure prompted him to return to comedy and Krasna wrote Dear Ruth his most popular hit.

<i>The Fall of Eve</i> 1929 film directed by Frank R. Strayer

The Fall of Eve is a 1929 American comedy film directed by Frank R. Strayer, which stars Patsy Ruth Miller, Ford Sterling, and Gertrude Astor. The screenplay was written by Gladys Lehman, from a story by Anita Loos and John Emerson, and the film was released by Columbia Pictures on June 25, 1929.

References

  1. Chatter, Rialto. "Rialto Chatter: Will Al Pacino Play Tennessee Williams on Broadway?". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved January 28, 2019.
  2. "Ruth Ford & Dotson Rader: A December Mistress-Muse to May". PEOPLE.com. Retrieved January 28, 2019.
  3. "Real Phil Ochs Back, But There's a Penalty". The New York Times. April 19, 1971. Retrieved January 28, 2019.
  4. Hevesi, Dennis (August 14, 2009). "Ruth Ford, Actress and Artists’ Muse, Is Dead at 98". The New York Times. Retrieved January 28, 2019.
  5. Madeleine H. Blais (April 4, 1979). "Tennessee in the Tropics". The Washington Post . Washington, D.C. ISSN   0190-8286. OCLC   1330888409.
  6. "Dotson Rader". Parade. Retrieved January 28, 2019.
  7. McNulty, Charles (March 2017). "'God Looked Away,' and so should you: Why Al Pacino's play falls so short of expectations". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved January 28, 2019.
  8. "'God Looked Away' From Garrett Clayton, But Can You?". Instinct. February 12, 2017. Archived from the original on October 12, 2018. Retrieved January 28, 2019.