Nola Chilton | |
|---|---|
 Chilton in 2013 | |
| Born | February 12, 1922 |
| Died | October 8, 2021 (aged 99) |
| Nationality | Israeli |
| Occupation(s) | Theater director, acting teacher |
| Known for |
|
| Awards | Israel Prize (2013) |
Nola Chilton (12 February 1922 – 8 October 2021) was an American-born Israeli theater director and acting teacher. She was a pioneer of socially engaged theater in Israel. In 2013, Chilton was awarded the Israel Prize for theater. [1]
Nola Chilton was born in Brooklyn, New York to Jewish immigrants from Odessa. Her mother died of tuberculosis when she was twelve. Her father was a jewelry engraver and food peddler. She studied acting under Lee Strasberg and worked at the Actors Studio, coaching actors and directing. In 1960, she directed an off-off Broadway production of "Dead End," a radical play about the miserable lives of poverty-stricken young people, in which Dustin Hoffman appeared. [2]
In 1963, Chilton immigrated to Israel, settling in Kiryat Gat, then a small town in the northern Negev. She worked briefly for the Cameri Theater but was not enamored with the Tel Aviv scene, which reminded her of what she had left behind. She adopted a two-year-old girl and moved to the north of the country, first to Kibbutz Ma'agan Michael and then Kibbutz Yasur. She was married to author John Auerbach, who died in 2002. Chilton was latterly a resident of Kibbutz Sdot Yam. [2] She died on 8 October 2021, at the age of 99. [3]
Chilton was the inspiration for The Open Theater, an experimental theatre group active from 1963 to 1973 in New York City founded by her students to implement her "post-method," post-absurd acting technique through a collaborative process that explores political, artistic, and social issues. [4] She also gave acting lessons to Charles Kerbs, among others. [5]
Chaim Topol, mononymously known as Topol, was an Israeli actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Tevye, the lead role in the stage musical Fiddler on the Roof and the 1971 film adaptation, performing this role more than 3,500 times from 1967 through 2009.
Julia Ann Harris was an American actress. Renowned for her classical and contemporary roles, she earned numerous accolades including five Tony Awards, three Emmy Awards, and a Grammy Award in addition to nominations for an Academy Award, and a BAFTA Award. She was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1979, received the National Medal of Arts in 1994, the Special Lifetime Achievement Tony Award, and the Kennedy Center Honor in 2005.
Geraldine Sue Page was an American actress. With a career which spanned four decades across film, stage, and television, Page was the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards, as well as nominations for four Tony Awards.
Olympia Dukakis was an American actress. She performed in more than 130 stage productions, more than 60 films and in 50 television series. Best known as a screen actress, she started her career in theater. Not long after her arrival in New York City, she won an Obie Award for Best Actress in 1963 for her off-Broadway performance in Bertolt Brecht's Man Equals Man.
Uta Thyra Hagen was a German-American actress and theatre practitioner. She originated the role of Martha in the 1962 Broadway premiere of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee, who called her "a profoundly truthful actress." Because Hagen was on the Hollywood blacklist, in part because of her association with Paul Robeson, her film opportunities dwindled and she focused her career on New York theatre.
Theodore Meir Bikel was an Austrian actor, folk singer, musician, composer, unionist, and political activist. He appeared in films, including The African Queen (1951), Moulin Rouge (1952), The Kidnappers (1953), The Enemy Below (1957), I Want to Live! (1958), My Fair Lady (1964), The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966), and 200 Motels (1971). For his portrayal of Sheriff Max Muller in The Defiant Ones (1958), he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Lee Strasberg was an American theatre director, actor and acting teacher. He co-founded, with theatre directors Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, the Group Theatre in 1931, which was hailed as "America's first true theatrical collective". In 1951, he became director of the nonprofit Actors Studio in New York City, considered "the nation's most prestigious acting school," and, in 1966, he was involved in the creation of Actors Studio West in Los Angeles.
Estelle Parsons is an American actress.
Stella Adler was an American actress and acting teacher.
The Open Theater was an experimental theatre group in New York City, active from 1963 to 1973.
Margaret Webster was an American-British theater actress, producer and director. Critic George Jean Nathan described her as "the best director of the plays of Shakespeare that we have."
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.
Marguerite Duffy, known professionally as Megan Terry, was an American playwright, screenwriter, and theatre artist.
The Two Character Play is an American play by Tennessee Williams that premiered in London at the Hampstead Theatre in December 1967. Williams himself had great affection for the play, and described it as follows:
Marcia Haufrecht is an American actress, playwright and director, as well as a noted acting teacher and coach. A life member of The Actors Studio, and a longtime member of The Ensemble Studio Theatre, she is also the founder and artistic director of the Off-Off-Broadway company, The Common Basis Theatre.
Jessie Bonstelle was an American theater director, actress, and drama company manager. Encouraged by her mother, she sang and performed in the theater from a young age; she went on to become a famous leading lady and made several performances on Broadway. Later she became a director, managing many stock companies, directing Broadway productions and training many young performers who went on to be famous actors. In 1925, she founded her own theater in Detroit. Reorganized in 1928 as the Detroit Civic Theatre, it was one of America's first civic theaters, and her methods influenced community theater projects elsewhere. She has been described as "one of the pioneering women stage directors in the early twentieth century".
Barbara Vann was an American theatre director and actor, best known for co-founding the Off-Off-Broadway company the Medicine Show Theater Ensemble, one of the longest continually running experimental theater companies in New York City. She was also a founding member of The Open Theater, an early, New York City-based experimental theater group.
Shulamit Bat-Dori was a Polish-Israeli playwright, kibbutz theatre director and producer, and dance festival director. A member of the Socialist-Zionist Hashomer Hatzair movement and its kibbutz, Mishmar HaEmek, she introduced political theatre to Palestine, writing and producing plays that reinforced the ideology of the Kibbutz Movement. She was known for her huge, open-air performances that enlisted hundreds of kibbutz members and attracted thousands of viewers. She represented Israel at international conferences and was a professor in the theatre department at Tel Aviv University from 1965 to 1974.
Liesl Tommy is a South African-American director. Primarily known for her stage work, Tommy became the first woman of color to be nominated for the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play, for directing the Broadway production of Danai Gurira's Eclipsed (2017). She made her feature film directorial debut with the biopic Respect, based on the life of singer Aretha Franklin, starring Jennifer Hudson and released in August 2021.
Stella Holt was an American theater producer. She served as managing director of the off-Broadway Greenwich Mews Theater in New York City for 15 years.
the open theater.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
