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Cohen, Nathan : open letter from John Herbert.
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- Textual record
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10 p.
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John Herbert was a Canadian playwright and theatre director. Born and raised in Toronto, Herbert attended Dora Mavor Moore's New Play Society and the National Ballet School of Canada. In 1960 Herbert founded the Garret Theatre with his sister Nana Brundage, and in 1964 wrote his most famous work, Fortune and Men's Eyes, which was in part inspired by his arrest for dressing as a woman and subsequent time spent in a youth reformatory. It was first staged in 1967 in New York and remained his most popular play. Herbert died in 2001.
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File contains the first draft manuscript, 10 leaves (carbon copy), with title "An open letter to Nathan Cohen as artist." Note by John Herbert: "Published in Guerrila[sic], the Toronto underground paper, 1970." Includes author's note on the envelope: "Box D: John Herbert archives. D7: Open letter to Nathan Cohen. First draft - 1970. At time of writing this piece, John Herbert was burning his bridges in Canada behind him, fed up with the treatment his Garret Theatre Company had received from Toronto critics, including Nathan Cohen. N.C. had asked J.H. to concentrate on writing and to work with director, George Luscombe of Toronto Workshop Productions, a company Cohen's good reviews had helped to gain audience and arts council respect. J.H. informed N.C. that he had tried to work with G.L. for several months in 1963 and found the director's disrespect for writers made an impossible situation. J.H. suspected Cohen's criticism of the Garret designed to close the theatre. J.H. planned to move to England in 1971."