The Watering Place is a play written by Lyle Kessler . His first full length, it debuted on Broadway, starring Shirley Knight and William Devane
5-498: Michael Langham , the initial director of the play, and future director at Juilliard , came to its producer Eugene Persson , and begged him to let him direct it. "Langham is known to be choosy and usually Producers hunt him down" an article in New York Magazine said at the time. On February 17, 1969, Alan Schneider took over the role as director for The Watering Place . The opening was delayed until March 6. The play closed
10-561: A Rockefeller Foundation grant for The Watering Place. The play has had segments published in a number of anthologies including Best Plays of 1969-1970 and Monologues--women: 50 speeches from the contemporary theatre, Volume 1 and memorabilia from the Broadway production are sold on eBay as collectors items. Langham said The Watering Place is one of the most significant plays about America he has ever read. Michael Langham Michael Seymour Langham (22 August 1919 – 15 January 2011)
15-422: The first day it opened, but Kessler believed the reason for its lack of success on Broadway had more to do with other variables than the merit of the play itself. "....there were a lot of problems" Kessler said in an interview in 1990, "We'd had a change of directors, some of the casting wasn't right. And at the time, people didn't want to see anything about Vietnam." Kessler, who went on to write Orphans , won
20-726: Was an English director and actor, who spent much of his career living and working in Canada and the United States. He was educated at Radley College and studied law at the University of London before enlisting in the British Army in 1939. After spending five years as a prisoner of war, Langham set his sights on the theatre and led several repertory theatres in the UK including Coventry (1946–1948), Birmingham (1948–1950) and Glasgow (1953–1954). Langham
25-623: Was the second artistic director at the Stratford Festival in Canada from 1956 to 1967, and he directed 38 productions over a 53 year association with Stratford. He was the third artistic director of the Guthrie Theater from 1971 to 1977. He was also director of the Juilliard School from 1979 to 1982, and again from 1987 to 1992. In 1995 he directed two plays for the inaugural season of
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