The Harris Family is an American family of entertainers. [1] Their careers, collectively and individually, encompass theater, music, film, broadcast media and performance art. They are best known as pioneers of experimental Off-Off-Broadway theater in New York City, San Francisco and Europe from the mid-1960s through the early 1980s. [2] [3] [4]
Following his Army Air Corps service in World War II, George Edgerly Harris Jr. of Margaretville, New York married Ann Marie McCanless of Bronxville, New York, on June 21, 1948. They settled in Bronxville, the Westchester County suburb where Ann had been raised. Their first six children were born there: George E. Harris III, Walter Michael Harris, Ann Marie Harris, Frederic Joseph Harris, Jayne Anne Harris and John Joseph Harris. Of these six, Ann Marie died at three months and John Joseph shortly after birth. In 1958 the Harrises relocated to Clearwater, Florida, where their two youngest, Eloise Alice Harris and Mary Lucile Harris, were born. [1] [5]
In 1959-1960 George and Ann became interested in theater and began acting with the local Francis Wilson Playhouse. Soon all six children were performing in the Playhouse's Junior Workshop. [6] [7] In 1961 Ann and her son George III converted the family's garage into a theater and founded The El Dorado Players, [8] an acting company named for the street they lived on, composed of the Harris children and their neighborhood friends. The Players’ first two offerings, Bluebeard and The Sheep and the Cheapskate, [4] [8] [9] [10] were short musicals written by Ann Harris during her college years. Subsequent shows were adapted from a Burton-Taylor film (Cleopatra, the Nile Queen) and from a Broadway musical record album (Camelot). The Players made a film, The Unsinkable Titanic, [9] inspired by Walter Lord's 1955 book A Night To Remember, and the 1958 film of the same name. George III wrote the screenplay and directed, and Ann played "The Unsinkable Molly Brown." Their efforts were rewarded with a sold-out premiere screening and a positive review in The Clearwater Sun newspaper. [10] Encouraged by their successes, the family sensed an opportunity and decided to move to New York City to seek careers in theater.
George Sr. moved to New York City in the summer of 1962 as an advance scout for his family. [3] [9] He soon met Ellen Stewart, founder of La MaMa Experimental Theater Club (ETC), a pioneering producer of experimental theater. [4] By December he was acting and directing for La MaMa, which led to work at the two other flagship theaters of the underground, the Caffe Cino and Judson Poets Theater. [1] [2] [3] [4] The following year George felt sure-footed enough to send for Ann and their six children. Stewart found them an apartment and recommended them to her fellow producers. All eight Harrises were enthusiastically embraced by the playwrights, directors and producers of Off-Off-Broadway. Dubbed “The Lunts of off-off-Broadway” by Cino playwright Robert Patrick, [1] the Harrises found work constantly and quickly established themselves as resourceful performers who could act, sing, dance, write and direct. Jayne Anne (aka Jane) made her New York debut as Christopher Robin in the 1964 Judson Poets Theater musical Sing Ho! For A Bear. [11] George Sr. played multiple roles in the July 1965 premiere of Lanford Wilson's This Is The Rill Speaking at the Caffe Cino, directed by the playwright. [12] In September 1965 Walter Michael made his New York debut at La MaMa ETC as Kenny in the premiere of Wilson's The Sandcastle, directed by Marshall W. Mason, [13] [14] followed by Young Albert in Paul Foster's The Madonna In The Orchard with Harvey Keitel, [15] [16] and in 1966 as Tobias in Tom Eyen's Miss Nefertiti Regrets, [17] [18] playing drums and singing opposite nineteen year-old Bette Midler. Also in 1966 George Sr. and Ann acted in the 1966 premiere of Lanford Wilson's The Rimers of Eldritch [12] [19] at La MaMa, directed by the playwright. Later that year Stewart invited George III, then fourteen, to re-establish his El Dorado Players in residence at La MaMa ETC as her “Young Playwrights Series.” [20] The reconstituted Players reprised their Florida successes, Bluebeard and The Sheep and the Cheapskate, [4] [19] [21] followed by two new original musicals featuring songs by Ann. The first, MacBee, [22] was adapted from Shakespeare's Macbeth. There Is Method In Their Madness followed, [19] [20] [23] based on the Harris children's experiences with acting school. As in Florida, the press took notice. [20] [23] At year's end Walter Michael wrote and performed the music for Tom Eyen's Give My Regards to Off-Off-Broadway [24] to celebrate La MaMa's re-opening following a period of closure by the city.
In 1967 George III acted in Jeff Weiss’ play A Funny Walk Home at the Caffe Cino. [3] When the Cino closed in 1968 following Joe Cino's suicide, [3] playwright Robert Patrick took up residence at the Old Reliable Theater Tavern on East Fourth Street. He invited Walter Michael there to supervise the music for his Easter play, Joyce Dynel. [4] [25]
By the mid 1960s family members were cast in Broadway and off-Broadway shows including The Porcelain Year (George III, 1965, with Barbara bel Geddes, Kim Darby and Martin Balsam), [26] Gorilla Queen (Georges Sr. and III, 1966), [4] [19] [27] Hair (Walter, 1968, with Diane Keaton and Melba Moore), [8] [28] [29] The Great White Hope (George Sr., 1968, with James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander) [4] [30] and Invitation To A Beheading (Eloise, 1969, with John Heffernan). [31] They signed with agents, joined the various unions for actors and entertainers, and by 1970 were full-fledged professionals.
Movie roles include Ann as Doris Acker in The Honeymoon Killers (1970) [32] and George, Sr. as Patrolman Mooney in Superman (1978). [33] Mary Lou as "College Student" was chased by a Muppet named Animal in the 1984 Jim Henson film The Muppets Take Manhattan. [34] Between professional acting and “day jobs,” family members remained active “downtown” with La MaMa ETC, Theater for the Lost Continent and Theater for the New City.
In late 1967 George III followed the youth counterculture movement to San Francisco. [5] On the way he joined the October 21, 1967 anti-war march on the Pentagon and became the subject of Flower Power, photojournalist Bernie Boston's historic photograph of that event. [35] In San Francisco he moved into beat poet Irving Rosenthal's Kaliflower commune, changed his name to Hibiscus and founded The Cockettes and Angels of Light theater troupes. [4] [36] [37] [38] In 1972 he returned to New York City with his partner and collaborator Angel Jack Coe, reunited with his family and recruited them for a new Angels of Light company there. [39] [40] In the mid-70s the New York Angels of Light, under Hibiscus’ leadership, became artists-in-residence at Theater for the New City [4] [41] in downtown Manhattan. They toured Europe twice, sponsored by National Artist of the Netherlands Ritsaert ten Cate, [42] founder of Amsterdam's Mickery Theater and DasArts. [43] [44] The Angels earned recognition at the international Festival Mondial du Théâtre in Nancy, France. [45] Notices in the European press were generally positive [46] [47] and most ran with photos, including one with then-campaigning presidential candidate François Mitterrand. [48]
In the late 70s the Angels disbanded and the Harris family regrouped in New York City to present an off-Broadway revue called Sky High. [49] In 1980 George III (Hibiscus) formed a musical art-rock club act with his sisters and his brother Fred called “Hibiscus and the Screaming Violets” [4] [50] while simultaneously writing, producing and starring in a new musical, Tinsel Town Tirade, featuring Andy Warhol star Holly Woodlawn. [51] On May 6, 1982, Hibiscus died from complications of AIDS, early in the epidemic. [52] His legacy and influence in theater and gay liberation are well documented. [2] [4] [53]
Following the Off-Off-Broadway years and performing with Hibiscus’ Angels of Light in New York City and Europe, the three Harris sisters formed a rock band, The Harris Sisters and Trouble in New York City. They played the downtown club scene including CBGB's, Great Gildersleeves and The Bitter End before teaming up with their brothers George (Hibiscus) and Fred to form the glitter-rock group "Hibiscus and the Screaming Violets.” [50] Following Hibiscus’ unexpected death in 1982 the sisters rallied and formed The Harris Sisters harmony trio and became prolific cabaret performers in New York City. [54] The Harris Sisters also performed on the talk show Geraldo, in service of the homeless through VETCO (Vietnam Veterans Ensemble Theater Company).
In the 1980s the Harris sisters created a successful business, Coat Check Inc., [55] to provide high-end event services (coat checking, waiter staff) to clients including The Metropolitan Costume Ball and Victoria's Secret. Their employees were actors and entertainers who needed flexible shifts to accommodate their unpredictable audition and performance schedules. In the late 1980s the sisters teamed up with Broadway composer Richard Adler [56] (The Pajama Game, Damn Yankees) to record an album titled The Harris Sisters Sing Richard Adler. [57] In 1992, the sisters performed in Hibiscus, [58] a musical about their late brother George, presented by Ellen Stewart at La MaMa ETC. The following year the Harris sisters co-wrote, produced and performed in the “backstage” musical Cheek to Cheek [59] which also premiered at La MaMa ETC.
The Harris family published two memoirs documenting their lives and careers: Caravan to Oz – a family reinvents itself off-off-Broadway (2014), [60] is a memoir of the family's artistic and personal journey as a family; and Flower Power Man, [61] a biography of the late George Harris III/ Hibiscus. Both books include essays and photos contributed by the family's friends and colleagues.
Lanford Wilson was an American playwright. His work, as described by The New York Times, was "earthy, realist, greatly admired [and] widely performed." Wilson helped to advance the Off-Off-Broadway theater movement with his earliest plays, which were first produced at the Caffe Cino beginning in 1964. He was one of the first playwrights to move from Off-Off-Broadway to Off-Broadway, then Broadway and beyond.
Off-off-Broadway theaters are smaller New York City theaters than Broadway and off-Broadway theaters, and usually have fewer than 100 seats. The off-off-Broadway movement began in 1958 as part of a response to perceived commercialism of the professional theatre scene and as an experimental or avant-garde movement of drama and theatre. Over time, some off-off-Broadway productions have moved away from the movement's early experimental spirit.
Robert Patrick was an American playwright, poet, lyricist, short story writer, and novelist.
Hibiscus was an American actor and performance artist. Starting his career in New York City, he moved to San Francisco, where in the early 1970s he founded the psychedelic gay liberation theater collective known as the Cockettes.
Home Free! is a one-act play by American playwright Lanford Wilson. The play is among Wilson's earlier works, and was first produced off-off-Broadway at the Caffe Cino in 1964.
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.
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.
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club is an Off-Off-Broadway theater founded in 1961 by African-American theatre director, producer, and fashion designer Ellen Stewart. Located in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, the theater began in the basement boutique where Stewart sold her fashion designs. Stewart turned the space into a theater at night, focusing on the work of young playwrights.
Michael Townsend Smith is an American playwright, theatre director, impresario, critic, and lighting designer.
Jeffrey Weiss was an American playwright, impresario, and actor, both on Broadway and a theater he ran with partner Ricardo Martinez in the East Village, Manhattan.
Leonard Melfi was an American playwright and actor whose work has been widely produced on the American stage.
Haralambos Monroe "Harry" Koutoukas was a surrealist playwright, actor and teacher. Along with Sam Shepard, Lanford Wilson, Doric Wilson, Tom Eyen and Robert Patrick, Koutoukas was among the artists who gave birth to the Off-Off Broadway theatre movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
George Birimisa was an American playwright, actor, and theater director who contributed to gay theater during the 1960s, the early years of the Off-Off-Broadway movement.
Theatre Genesis was an off-off-Broadway theater founded in 1964 by Ralph Cook. Located in the historic St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery in the East Village of Manhattan, it produced the work of new American playwrights, including Lanford Wilson, Tony Barsha, Murray Mednick, Leonard Melfi, Walter Hadler, and Sam Shepard. Theatre Genesis is often credited as one of the original off-off-Broadway theaters, along with Joe Cino's Caffe Cino, Ellen Stewart's La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, and Judson Poets Theatre.
The Madness of Lady Bright is a short play by Lanford Wilson, among the earliest of the gay theatre movement. The play was first performed at Joe Cino's Caffe Cino in May 1964.
Jean-Claude van Itallie was a Belgian-born American playwright, performer, and theatre workshop teacher. He is best known for his 1966 anti-Vietnam War play America Hurrah;The Serpent, an ensemble play he wrote with Joseph Chaikin's Open Theatre; his theatrical adaptation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead; and his translations of Anton Chekhov's plays.
Basil Wallace is a Jamaica-born American actor. He was born in Kingston and immigrated to the United States as a child. His family first settled in Brooklyn, New York City. He, his parents, and his siblings then moved to Long Island, where he attended Hempstead High School.
Tanya Berezin was an American actress, co-founder and an artistic director of Circle Repertory Company in New York City, and educator. She performed on Broadway and Off-Broadway, and also appeared in a number of films and television series.
Caffe Cino was an Off-Off-Broadway theater founded in 1958 by Joe Cino. The West Village coffeehouse, located at 31 Cornelia Street, was initially conceived as a venue for poetry, folk music, and visual art exhibitions. The plays produced at the Cino, however, became most prominent, and it is now considered the "birthplace of Off-Off-Broadway".
Michael Warren Powell was an American artistic director, director, actor and designer involved in the Off-Off-Broadway movement, Off-Broadway and in the development of new American plays.
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