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The
Company
Ronald Rand - playwright & performer
Gregory Abels - director
Elizabeth Dixon - voice consultant
Laura Gale - dramaturg
  RONALD
RAND (Harold
Clurman, Playwright) recently appeared with
Marian Seldes, Elizabeth Ashley, Jayne Atkinson, Donald Margulies,
and Rosemary Harris in a program he created for The Helen Rose Scheuer
Jewish Women's Series at The Jewish Museum in New York City. He began
his acting
career appearing in over 250 plays at a professional children's theatre
in Florida. His Off-Broadway debut in Julius Caesar at the Brooklyn
Academy of Music with Richard Dreyfuss and George Rose, was followed
by numerous New York appearances including Hamm in Endgame ,directed
by Joseph Chaikin; the lead in Goldoni's The Liar; as the First
Gravedigger in Hamlet; leads in several of Bernard Shaw's plays;
and all three male roles in Perfect Crime for two years. Mr. Rand
also toured for five months throughout Europe as the Fool in King
Lear. Mr. Rand appeared as Sturdyvant in a sold-out
run in The Classical Theatre of Harlem's production of Ma
Rainey's Black Bottom, directed by Arthur French. His television
appearances include: Milton Sterns in A Marriage - O'Keefe and Steiglitz on
American Playhouse, opposite Jane Alexander & Christopher Plummer; Homeless with
Yoko Ono; Law & Order; Saturday Night Live (for many
seasons); and all of New York City's daytime serials. His extensive film
work include roles in The Emperor's Club; In & Out; Jerky
Boys; Another You; Rude Awakening; and Quiz Show directed
by Robert Redford. He studied with Stella Adler for over 5 years, receiving
a B.F.A. in Acting at NYU's School of the Arts, and was also fortunate
to have studied with Harold Clurman. He counts among his mentors: Jerzy
Grotowski, Joseph Chaikin, Richard Schechner, John Strasberg, Sabra Jones,
and Bobby Lewis. He also studied at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic
Art. As a playwright, Mr. Rand's plays also include Ode to the Moon; Ziz,
King of the Birds; The Site of Human Life; and The Group! about
the life of The Group Theatre (World Premiere at Northern Illinois University,
February, 2004). The
Group! also received
the distinction of being chosen to appear in the York Theatre's New Play
Series, as well as The Cherry Lane Theatre New Play Festival, and has
also been seen at The Actors Studio, The Harold Clurman Theatre, Lambs
Theatre, Stella Adler Theatre, Neighborhood Playhouse, and here at The
Century Center. Mr. Rand is the Founder, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief of "The Soul of the  American
Actor," now
in its 11th year of international circulation. It is the only free newspaper
in America dedicated to the art and craft of the actor and the art of
the theatre. Mr. Rand has had the honor of producing these memorable
events at
The Players in New York City: Libby Skala in "LiLiA!",
Janis Stevens in "Vivien," "An Evening with Vijay Tendulkar" (India's
greatest living playwright a staged reading of Ty Jones' Emancipation, Vinie Burrows in Rose McClendon: Harlem's Gift to Broadway), John Rothman as "H.L. Mencken",
Andrea Reese in "Cirque Jacqueline," and "An Evening of
Exceptional Women Poets" with Ruby Dee, Irene O'Garden, Hasna Muhammad & Sandy
Rochelle. Over the past four years Clurman has received acclaim
in New York City: Off Broadway in an exclusive three week run produced by the Mirror Repertory Theatre (which was founded by Eva Le Gallienne, Geraldine Page & Sabra Jones) at The Century
Center, at The Players, Stella Adler Studio of Acting, T. Schreiber Studio, New Actors Workshop (for Mike Nichols' & George Morrison's students), Neighborhood
Playhouse School of Theatre, Maggie Flanigan Studios, Sande Shurin Theatre,
Penny Templeton Studio, Actors Movement Studio (for William Esper ’s
students), Episcopal Actors’ Guild of America, and at New York
University. Worldwide -
in Eastern Europe at The Georgian International Festival of Arts (GIFT - Tbilisi, Georgia (as a premiere presentation, attended by the Russian Ambassador and hailed by the President of Georgia)
Across the nation “LET IT BE ART! Harold Clurman's Life of Passion” has also received standing ovations
at the 13th Annual Frontier Theatre Conference (Valdez, Alaska), Governor’s School for the Arts (Norfolk, Virginia), Northern
Illinois University (Dekalb, Illinois), University of the Arts & Villanova
University (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), Vaudeville Muse Theatre (Des
Moines, Iowa), and as a special presentation at The New England Theatre
Conference’s Annual Convention (NETC) in Bedford, New Hampshire. Mr. Rand is a member of The Actors Studio Playwright/Directors Unit, and an Artistic Advisor to the Mirror Repertory Theatre and the American National Theatre.
photo: Lloyd H. Slomanson
 GREGORY
ABELS (Director)
An artist of vast experience, Mr. Abels has directed or acted in nearly
800 plays, films and television dramas.
In 1980 he founded St. Malachy's Theatre-space. Among the numerous plays
he directed there was a highly acclaimed production of T.S. Eliot's Murder
in the Cathedral starring Lee Richardson and the World Premiere of
Sally Dixon Wiener's Show Me A Hero. Other New York directing
credits include new American plays for The Lark Theatre Company and New
Dramatists; a series of Scandinavian plays at Lincoln Center and the
Samuel Beckett Theatre, sponsored by the Swedish Consulate. Regionally,
he has directed Ephiginia at Aulis (Cleveland Playhouse); A
Midsummer Night's Dream (Asolo State Theatre); an adaptation of Robert
Lewis Stevenson's Kidnapped (Westerly Theatre); and Mass Appeal (Stage
West) was one of the most popular productions in that theatre's 35-year
history. He is perhaps best known as an actor for his performance as
the relentless prosecuting attorney in the Broadway production of Nuts.
Mr. Abels is the leading American director in the Czech Republic, where
he directed the Czech premiere of Arthur Miller's The Archbishop's
Ceiling in Prague, sponsored by The World Pen Congress and the United
States Information Agency; and Herb Gardner's The Goodbye People,
which ran for four years. His production of Julius Caesar was
the first permitted in Moravia since the 'Prague Spring'. At an early
age, he was a star pupil of Stella Adler. A Master Teacher himself,
he guided his own classical based Manhattan acting conservatory,
GATE - Gregory Abels Training Ensemble, 1996-2004. There he has directed
annual spring productions including The Trojan Women by Euripedes
and The Triumph of Love by Marivaux, and works by Havel, Pinter,
Churchill, Carr, and Fornes. He has served as Master Teacher on the faculties
of New York University, National Theatre Institute at The O'Neill Center,
Stella Adler Studio of Acting, National Shakespeare Conservatory, Warsaw
State Academy, and The National Academy of Prague. Mr. Abels will direct a world premiere of a new play in the spring of 2006 in Prague. He is currently the Master Teacher of Scene Study at Circle-in-the-Square School and an Artistic Advisor to the American National Theatre.
 ELIZABETH DIXON (Voice Consultant) Internationally renowned vocal and personal dramatic coach, she has worked on many Broadway & National tours, including Natalie Makarova
(“On Your Toes”), Mary Martin (“The Sound of Music”), Anthony Quinn (“Becket”), Lilia Skala (“Forty Carets”), Zoe Caldwell & Lindsay Crouse
(“Long Day’s Journey Into Night,”) Kirk Douglas (“Long Day’s Journey Into Night,”) Diana Sands (“Owl and the Pussycat”), as well as several Off-B’way plays and theatre companies, among others. Her film and TV coaching includes Michael Douglas (“Wall Street”), Lindsay Crouse (“Places
in the Heart” and “House of Games”), Eva Le Gallienne (“Resurrection”), Jane Fonda & Donald Sutherland (“Klute”), Joel Grey (“Cabaret”), Jon
Voight (“Midnight Cowboy”), Al Pacino (“Bobby Deerfield”), Ben Gazzara (“Run for Your Life”), “Lois and Clark,” many soap operas; Ms. Dixon
also worked with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Isabella Rossellini, Lauren Bacall and Katharine Hepburn. Ms. Dixon is the author of The
Spiritual In Speech or Create Yourself – Everything Else Has Been Done. A New Voice Is a New You. (212) 685-6415
 LAURA
GALE (Dramaturg of Educational Guide for Teachers on website), is a co-founder of Theatre Artists Collective ( tac@tac-nyc.org) and
also spent several years working as a resident
artist at Ensemble Actors' Theatre, a company she co-founded to explore
the actor's creative process within a permanent ensemble of young artists.
Laura trained at New York's Circle in the Square Theatre School and holds
degrees in Theatre and Sociology from the Ohio State University, where
her study of the history of American acting eventually led to her extensive
research on Clurman and the Group Theatre. In New York City
she has worked in casting at MTC and as part of the administrative team
at The Mint Theater. Ms. Gale is delighted to be involved in this exciting
project, which offers students, the theatre leaders of the future, such
a tremendous opportunity to become informed about and inspired by a great
leader of the past.
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