Edward Einhorn

Last updated
Edward Einhorn
Born (1970-09-06) September 6, 1970 (age 53)
Westfield, New Jersey, U.S.
Occupation
  • Playwright
  • theater director
  • novelist
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater Westfield High School
Johns Hopkins University
Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Website
www.edwardeinhorn.com

Edward Einhorn (born September 6, 1970) is an American playwright, theater director, and novelist.

Contents

Early life, education and career

A native of Westfield, New Jersey, Einhorn graduated from Westfield High School, where he was an editor of the student newspaper Hi's Eye . He attended Johns Hopkins University, and he has a MA in Opera Writing from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In 1992, he cofounded the Untitled Theater Company No. 61 in New York with his older brother, David. He curated the Ionesco Festival in 2001 (Eugène Ionesco's complete works) and the Havel Festival in 2006 (Václav Havel's complete works). He currently also serves as the Artistic Director of the Rehearsal for Truth International Theater Festival, honoring Václav Havel. [1]

As a playwright

As a playwright, Einhorn became known for his absurd comic style. One of his best-known plays is The Marriage of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein, [2] a farce set at a fantasy marriage between Stein and Toklas. The show received a Critic's Pick from Jesse Green, then co-chief reviewer of The New York Times for its production at HERE Arts. It was also produced Off-West End at the Jermyn Street Theatre. [3] at His other works include dramas on Jewish legends [4] and a series of plays on neurological and neuroscientific topics —The Neurology of the Soul (on neuromarketing), [5] The Boy Who Wanted to be a Robot (on Asperger syndrome), The Taste of Blue, (on synesthesia), Strangers (on Korsakoff syndrome), and Linguish (on aphasia). He adapted Lysistrata and Iphigenia in Aulis for modern audiences. [6] In 2023, his play The Shylock and the Shakespeareans, a darkly humorous retelling of The Merchant of Venice , was produced at The New Ohio Theatre and received a rave review from Yair Rosenberg in The Atlantic . [7]

Adaptations include Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick; [8] The Lathe of Heaven , by Ursula Le Guin; and City of Glass, by Paul Auster. He also translated and adapted Václav Havel's final play, The Pig, or Václav Havel's Hunt for a Pig , [9] [10] as well as translating Havel's one-act, Ela, Hela, and the Hitch . [11] He also turned the existing fragments of Exagoge by Ezekiel the Tragedian into a play/opera/immersive Passover seder. [12]

As a novelist

Einhorn has written two Oz novels, Paradox in Oz [13] and The Living House of Oz, both illustrated by Eric Shanower. [14] He has written two picture books on mathematical subjects for young readers: A Very Improbable Story, [15] on the subject of probability, and Fractions in Disguise, on the subject of fractions. [16] A number of his plays have also been published, [17] including a graphic novel adaptation of Iphigenia in Aulis, with art by Eric Shanower, from Image Comics. [18]

Podcasts

In 2020, his podcast The Resistible Rise of J. R. Brinkley was released, a four-part audio drama about the quack doctor turned politician, hosted by Dan Butler. [19]

In 2021, his podcast The Iron Heel was released, a three-part audio drama adaptation of the book by Jack London. [20]

As a theater director

While working with Untitled Theater Company No. 61, he directed T. S. Eliot's Sweeney Agonistes, Eugène Ionesco's The Bald Soprano , and Richard Foreman's My Head Was a Sledgehammer, among other works. Off-Broadway, he directed Fairy Tales of the Absurd, a trilogy of one-act plays, two by Ionesco and one (One Head Too Many) by himself. [21]

In 2014 and 2015, he created and directed the show Money Lab, an economic vaudeville, produced at HERE Arts Center in Manhattan and The Brick in Brooklyn. [22] [23]

In 2022, he directed a film of The Last Cyclist written in Terezin by Karel Svenk and reconstructed by Naomi Patz, which was originally staged at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club and was broadcast on WNET Channel 13, a PBS affiliate, as part of Theater Close Up. [24] [25]

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Ela, Hela, and the Hitch is a play by Václav Havel. The play was written for the artistic director of the Theatre on the Balustrade, Ivan Vyskočil, as part of a longer evening, entitled Hitchhiking. Along with Ela, Hela, and the Hitch, Havel also wrote a sketch called Motormorphosis. Reportedly, Vyskočil altered Havel's sketches for the performance, though the original text was discovered by a Czech theater scholar, Lenka Jungmannová. Motormorphosis, in a translation by Carol Rocamora, was performed at the Havel Festival in 2006, a world premiere of the text as written. Ela, Hela, and the Hitch premiered in an English translation by Edward Einhorn following a revival of Motormorphosis at New York's Bohemian National Hall in 2011.

The Pig, or Václav Havel's Hunt for a Pig is the final work by Václav Havel, co-authored by Vladimír Morávek. The English translation is by Edward Einhorn. Originally a short dialogue from 1987 and printed in a samizdat, the piece is a comic story of Václav Havel’s efforts to hold a pig roast for his friends.

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27 is an opera by composer Ricky Ian Gordon and librettist Royce Vavrek in a prologue and five acts that explores the relationship of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, and the salons that they hosted at their residence at 27 rue de Fleurus in Paris. The work was commissioned by Opera Theatre of Saint Louis for mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe. The full cast of five singers was featured on the cover of the June 2014 issue of Opera News. The opera premiered on June 14, 2014, in a production directed by James Robinson and conducted by Michael Christie at the Loretto-Hilton Center in St. Louis, Missouri. The world premiere was recorded by Albany Records.

References

  1. ↑ Rehearsal for Truth Festival website
  2. ↑ New York Times review, The Marriage of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
  3. ↑ Jermyn Street Theatre production of The Marriage of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
  4. ↑ Edward Einhorn, The Golem, Methuselah, and Shylock: Plays by Edward Einhorn, New York, Theater 61 Press, 2005.
  5. ↑ Scientific American review, The Neurology of the Soul, February 13, 2019
  6. ↑ Script of Lysistrata
  7. ↑ The Atlantic review, The Shylock and the Shakespeareans
  8. ↑ New York Times Review, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
  9. ↑ Backstage review, The Pig
  10. ↑ New York Times review, The Pig
  11. ↑ Theater 61 Press
  12. ↑ Chava Pearl Lansky The world’s oldest Jewish play inspires a new, immersive production. JTA. May 3, 2024.
  13. ↑ Edward Einhorn, Paradox in Oz, San Diego, Hungry Tiger Press, 1999.
  14. ↑ Edward Einhorn, The Living House of Oz, San Diego, Hungry Tiger Press, 2005.
  15. ↑ Edward Einhorn, A Very Improbable Story, Watertown, MA, Charlesbridge Press, 2008.
  16. ↑ Kirkus review
  17. ↑ Midwest book review, Playing Dreidel
  18. ↑ Image Comics Iphigenia in Aulis page
  19. ↑ Set the Tape review, The Resistible Rise of J. R. Brinkley
  20. ↑ "UTC61 website". Archived from the original on 2021-04-30. Retrieved 2021-04-30.
  21. ↑ New York Times review, Fairy Tales of the Absurd
  22. ↑ Village Voice review, Money Lab
  23. ↑ blogcritics review, Money Lab
  24. ↑ The Last Cyclist website
  25. ↑ Article about The Last Cyclist in The Times of Israel
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