The Playwrights Database
DAVID FISHELSON
(1956 - )Nationality: USA
email: Click here to contact Website: Click here
Literary Agent: Creative Artists Agency CA Paradigm (for older work)
"David J. ""Dave"" Fishelson (born July 24, 1956). As Artistic Director of Manhattan Ensemble Theater, Dave Fishelson was the lead producer of Golda's Balcony, the longest-running one-woman show in Broadway history (2003-5, Tony nomination), as well as the producer of that show's North American Tour (winner, ""Best Play"", 2005-6 Touring Broadway Awards). Since founding the nonprofit in 2001, he has held the dual titles of ""Founding Artistic Director"" and ""Producer"" of Off-Broadway's Manhattan Ensemble Theater (""MET"", originally based in SoHo), whose award-winning productions have included two of his own plays, all published by Dramatists Play Service. Dave founded MET to develop and produce new works of Theater 'mined' from the rich ore of such diverse narrative sources as fiction, journalism, film, biography and memoir. Productions have included the Lortel-winning 9 Parts of Desire (about the women of Iraq), which ran for nine sold-out months, before moving on to acclaimed productions at Berkeley Rep, Seattle Rep, the Geffen in L.A., and Arena Stage in D.C. (from 2005-2008). In addition to the Lortel and numerous Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk nominations, Nine Parts was a runner-up for the 2005 Susan Smith Blackburn prize, and was on the short list for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Between 2002-2005, Dave produced two plays at MET that enjoyed critical and commercial success Off-Broadway. the aforementioned Golda's Balcony (2003-6) earned a ""Best Play"" nomination from the Drama League, before moving to the Helen Hayes Theatre on Broadway in October 2003, where it ran for 15 months through January 2005. Hank Williams: Lost Highway (2002-3) earned an OBIE Award, as well as nominations from the Outer Critics Circle (""Best Off-Broadway Musical"", ""Best Actor in a Musical"", ""Best Director of a Musical""), the Lucille Lortel Awards (""Best Musical"", ""Best Actor in a Musical"") and the Drama Desk (""Best Actor in a Musical""), as well as citations from the New York Times and the New York Sun as one of 2002-3's best Off-Broadway productions, before moving commercially to be the inaugural production at the Little Shubert Theater on 42nd Street. In its first full season in 2001-2002, MET produced three plays that won critical acclaim: Death in Venice (cited by Time Out as one of the ""Ten Best Plays of the Year""), the Castle (which earned a Drama League nomination for ""Best Play"", as well as Outer Critics Circle nominations for ""Best Off-Broadway Play"" and ""Best Director"") and the Golem (Drama Desk nomination for ""Best Featured Actor""). Both the Castle and the Golem (co-authored by Dave) were published by Dramatists Play Service in 2003. Before founding MET, Dave was Jean Cocteau Repertory's managing director from 1989-1992, its associate artistic director from 1992-1994, and a resident director there from 1994-1997, where he wrote and directed two dramatizations of Dostoyevsky's novels: the Idiot and the Brothers Karamazov. Both were published by Dramatists Play Service in 1995, and broadcast as radio plays on ""National Public Radio Playhouse."" For the screen he wrote and directed the award-winning independent feature City News, which was broadcast on PBS's ""American Playhouse."" Shot without stars on a miniscule budget, City News found immediate success by being the official selection of 12 international film festivals between 1983-4, including those of Atlanta, Edinburgh, Houston, Munich, Florence (Italy), Athens (Ohio), Santa Fe, Seattle, Vancouver, the USA Film Festival Dallas, the 6th Goteborg (Sweden) Film Festival and the 14th International Film Festival antwerp (1984). In 2009, Dave sold the SoHo-based, 140-seat Theater he designed - also known as ""Manhattan Ensemble Theater"" - to the award-winning Theater company ""the Culture Project"" (the Exonerated, Bridge and Tunnel, Guantanamo) in order to develop and produce a new slate of world-premiere productions both on Broadway and Off. A new space for MET is also a possibility after 2010, with the organization currently searching for a downtown Theater with a minimum of 199-299 seats (up to 150 more seats than the original space in SoHo). Among Dave's current projects-in-development for future MET seasons are a drama set during the fall of the Berlin Wall, an adaptation of a well-known French New Wave film for the stage, and an original play about the Holocaust called the Hamlet Syndrome. Dave is a full member of the Dramatists Guild, as well as a Tony-voting member of the Broadway League. He lives in Manhattan with his wife Erana, and his two children Natasha and Max."
Research: Member of the Dramatists Guild of America (as at 2015)
Buy Plays with Doollee
Each page of doollee.com has links to play/book outlets, either directly to the Publisher, through Stageplays.com and Amazon to the second hand and 1st editions of AbeBooks. These links will automatically take you to the relevant area obviating the need for further search.AbeBooks.co.uk AbeBooks.com Stageplays.com amazon.com
amazon.co.uk
amazon.ca
whether you are a Playwright who wishes to make their entry definitive, an unlisted Playwright or a User with a tale to tell - we want to hear from you.
download WORD submission template
below is a list of David Fishelson's plays - click on a Play Title for more information
Brothers Karamazov Castle, The Golem, The Idiot, TheBrothers Karamazov
Three brothers, separated since childhood, reunite as adults in the house of their father, a lecherous, whore-mongering landowner who abandoned the boys after driving their respective mothers into early graves. the eldest son, Dmitry, a passionately impetuous ladies' man and professional soldier, angrily accuses his Father of not only withholding his inheritance, but also of trying to buy the heart of Grushenka, the woman Dmitry loves. the middle son, Ivan, a cool, self-controlled intellectual and atheist, is in love with Katerina, Dmitry's manipulative, and soon-to-be-abandoned fiancee. alyosha, the youngest brother, a warm-hearted, somewhat egoless, but down to earth young man, is studying to be a monk in a nearby monastery while striving to hold his volatile family together. the plot centers around Dmitry's growing hatred for his father, which erupts in front of a gathering of holy men at alyosha's monastery. alyosha entreats Ivan to help cool this hatred between Dmitry and their father, but Ivan justifies his own lack of concern-and his atheism-during a heart-to-heart talk with alyosha over dinner in a tavern. In his famous, riveting monologue, Ivan tells alyosha the tale of the "Grand Inquisitor," in which Christ returns during the Spanish Inquisition, only to be imprisoned by an evil Cardinal and threatened with being burned at the stake. Later that night, old man Karamazov is found murdered and robbed, and the prime suspect, the impoverished Dmitry, is arrested at the height of a wild celebration in an inn just outside town, with his pockets full of cash. a climactic trial scene reveals what really happened: that Ivan, through his casual, amoral, philosophical remarks, had incited the surly servant Smerdyakov (himself an illegitimate son of Karamazov) to kill their Father and then commit suicide. after Ivan is visited in the middle of the night by someone who may well be the devil, his overwhelming sense of guilt forces him to burst into the courtroom and confess this 'guilt' out loud. the jury convicts Dmitry despite this confession, which leaves Ivan only one other alternative: to selflessly, and at great risk, arrange for Dmitry's escape-thereby realizing alyosha's dream of uniting the brothers in forgiveness and love.
Notes:
from Dostoyevsky
1st Produced:
Bouwerie Lane Theatre, Off Bway, New York City 21 Jan 1994
Organisations:
Jean Cocteau Repertory
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1995 978-0822214250
Music:
-
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Booksellers:
Genre:
adaptation
Parts:
Male: 12 Female: 4 Other: flexible
Further Reference:
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/05/theater/review-theater-embracing-dostoyevsky-and-the-big-questions.php
Top of PageCastle, The
Cited as one of the 100 greatest works of fiction of all time by a panel of international writers in 2002, the CaSTLe remains "Kafka's most magical novel" (New York Times). By turns sexy, comic and horrifying, this new stage version of the CaSTLe tells the story of a man who decides to fight a monstrous bureaucracy rather than give in to it, attempting and failing to gain entrance to a castle where he has been summoned to work. In its surreal depiction of an all-powerful organization (which some, including Thomas Mann, have called a metaphor for God), the CaSTLe is a black comedy for our times
Notes:
adapted by David Fishelson And Aaron Leichter from A Dramatization by Max Brod. Based on the novel by Franz Kafka
1st Produced:
Manhattan Ensemble Theatre, Off-Bway, New York City 08 Jan 2002
Organisations:
Manhattan Ensemble Theatre
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 2002 978-0822219002
Music:
-
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Booksellers:
Genre:
adaptation
Parts:
Male: 8 Female: 3 Other: doubling
Further Reference:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/18/movies/theater-review-a-kafkaesque-bureaucracy-literally.php?src=pm
Top of PageGolem, The
Drenched in the magic and mystery of the Kabbala, the GOLeM retells the legend of a sixteenth-century Rabbi in Prague who defies God when he molds and animates a huge clay figure to defend the Jewish community from attack. Written in Yiddish in 1921 by Russian expatriate H. Leivick, the GOLeM was astonishingly prophetic of the events of the Holocaust and the birth of the State of Israel. In the wake of September 11th, the play carries with it even more powerful echoes of the dilEmmas faced by our civilization today, especially the notion of whether we're forced to resort to violence to survive. Originally a daunting four hours in length, this new version clocks in at an economical one hour and twenty minutes.
Notes:
Original Playwright - H Leivick, Adapted by David Fishelson, from A translation by Joseph C. Landis
1st Produced:
Manhattan Ensemble Theatre, Off-Bway, New York City 01 Apr 2002
Organisations:
Manhattan Ensemble Theatre
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 2002 978-0822218999
Music:
-
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Booksellers:
Genre:
adaptation
Parts:
Male: 11 Female: 2 Other: -
Further Reference:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/07/theater/theater-a-jewish-avenger-a-timely-legend.php
Top of PageIdiot, The
a young man, Leo Myshkin-called "Prince Myshkin" due to royal blood somewhere in his past-returns to Russia after 15 years in a Swiss institution where he was treated for severe epilepsy. Carrying nothing but a small bundle, he is at first taken for an idiot by the cynical, jaded society of 1860s St. Petersburg. Gradually, his non-judgmental, forgiving and almost child-like nature bewitches all who meet him, including two of the most beautiful, sought-after women in town: aglaya, the impulsive younger daughter of the wealthy General Yepanchin; and Nastasya Filipovna, the kept mistress of Totsky, a middle-aged dandy who seduced Nastasya as an underage young girl. Growing tired of Nastasya, Totsky tries to marry her off to one of his flunkies, but the tormented, self-hating Nastasya won't go easily. at a dazzling society party to announce this unwanted engagement, Nastasya meets the Prince, who quickly perceives that she's being victimized by the men in her life. the Prince offers to marry her himself to save her from this horrible fate, moving Nastasya to open her heart to him. Suddenly there is confusion as Rogozhin, a passionate and self-destructive merchant's son, insanely in love with Nastasya, crashes the party with his gang of drunken rowdies and offers to buy Nastasya's hand for 100,000 roubles. Torn between the saintly Myshkin and the unruly and dangerous Rogozhin, Nastasya chooses Rogozhin-certain that she'd only corrupt the 'pure and gentle' soul of the Prince. as the Prince chases after Nastasya and Rogozhin, aglaya Yepanchin falls in love with Myshkin, horrifying her father. the story rapidly builds to a series of violent confrontations as the two women face off, competing for Myshkin right before his horrified eyes, and Rogozhin tries to murder Myshkin when Nastasya cannot erase him from her heart. Gradually, the people surrounding Myshkin begin to destroy him, each wanting him for themselves and not willing to share his love. When Nastasya is murdered by Rogozhin in the play's harrowing climax, Myshkin snaps and lapses back into idiocy: a victim of a society that destroys the best part of itself when it lets greed, lust and power rule.
Notes:
from Dostoyevsky
1st Produced:
Bouwerie Lane Theatre, Off Bway, New York City 28 Nov 1992
Organisations:
Jean Cocteau Repertory
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1995 978-0822214245
Music:
-
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Booksellers:
Genre:
adaptation
Parts:
Male: 9 Female: 6 Other: flexible
Further Reference:
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/21/theater/theater-in-review-210192.php
Top of Page