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Robert Sanford Brustein (April 21, 1927 – October 29, 2023) was an American theater critic, producer, playwright, writer, and educator. He founded the Yale Repertory Theatre while serving as dean of the Yale School of Drama in New Haven, Connecticut, as well as the American Repertory Theater and Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was a creative consultant until his death, and was the theatre critic for The New Republic.
Brustein was a senior research fellow at Harvard University and a distinguished scholar in residence at Suffolk University in Boston. Celebrated Writer-Director Robert Brustein Joins Suffolk University He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1999, and in 2002, was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. Complete List of ATHOF Inductees (pdf) In 2003, he served as a senior fellow with the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University, and in 2004/2005, was a senior fellow at the National Endowment for the Arts Arts Journalism Institute in Theatre and Musical Theatre at the University of Southern California. In 2010, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama
Brustein attended The High School of Music & Art.Wolfson, C.K. "Theatre: Robert Brustein: Best of all worlds," The Martha's Vineyard Times (September 20, 2007). At the age of 16, he enrolled at Amherst College, where he received a BA in medieval history in 1948. When he turned 18, he briefly left Amherst to enlist in the Merchant Marines, though he never saw action as a cadet midshipman at the end of World War II. He spoke about his desire to later avoid being drafted for service in the Korean War (he was not given an exemption for previous service) by continuing his post-graduate education.
Brustein spent an "unhappy year" at the Yale School of Drama studying dramatic literature and criticism before attending Columbia University to complete his MA in 1950. He also held a Fulbright Fellowship to study in the United Kingdom from 1953 to 1955, where he directed plays at the University of Nottingham.Robert Brustein, "A Critic in the Making"(pdf), Nottingham Alumni Online, 2001. p.15
Throughout the later 1940s and into the 1950s, Brustein tried to work as an actor, participating in Underground art theater companies in New York and Wellesley. He auditioned, to Joseph Papp of The Public, for the lead role in a 1957 production of Richard III, but lost out to George C. Scott.
Brustein received a PhD in 1957 in dramatic literature, supervised by Lionel Trilling. His dissertation was on the playwright John Marston.Robert Sanford Brustein. "Italian Court Satire and the Plays of John Marston." Ph.D. dissertation--Columbia University, 1957. .
In 1978, Yale announced that it would not renew Brustein's contract when it was set to end in June 1979, not citing any specific reason for ending his tenure. Brustein strongly criticized the decision, and Yale President A. Bartlett Giamatti, for weakening the theater school's ability to properly train future dramatic voices for the American stage, in the name of lowering the barrier of entry for other Yale students interested in theater.
In 1979, Brustein left Yale for Harvard University, where he founded the American Repertory Theater (ART) and became a professor of English. At Harvard, he founded the Institute for Advanced Theater Training. He retired from the artistic directorship of ART in 2002, and then served on the faculty of the institute. He was a distinguished scholar in residence from 2007, at Suffolk University, where he taught courses in Shakespeare Analysis. "Robert Brustein" on the Suffolk University website As the artistic director of Yale Rep from 1966 to 1979, and of ART from 1980 to 2002, Brustein supervised over 200 productions, acting in eight and directing twelve.
As head of ART, Brustein engaged in a public disagreement with Samuel Beckett over a 1984 production of his play Endgame, directed by JoAnne Akalaitis. Akalaitis's direction featured black actors, music from Philip Glass, and a subway tunnel setting, all of which offended Beckett's stated vision for the staging. Brustein defended the production's ability to freely interpret Beckett's words as they saw fit. He negotiated a compromise with Beckett that would avert legal action and allow the play to proceed as staged, but included a program insert from Beckett disavowing the choices:
“My play requires an empty room and two small windows. The American Repertory Theater production which dismisses my directions is a complete parody of the play as conceived by me. Anybody who cares for the work couldn’t fail to be disgusted by this.”
His critical style was defined as "pugilistic" and "pugnacious"—especially with his harsh criticism of artists—which he later regretted. In 2014, Tennessee Williams biographer John Lahr and Brustein spoke about a 1980 review of Williams's Clothes for a Summer Hotel where Brustein had written:
"I suspect the playwright would just as soon let the moment pass in silence while he licks his wounds and ponders his next move (perhaps a flight to Three Mile Island on a one-way ticket).”To Lahr, Brustein disavowed the words, saying that he couldn't "imagine making such a cruel and aggressive remark."
He authored sixteen books on theatre and society:
Brustein was the writer and narrator of a WNET television series in 1966 called The Opposition Theatre. He also commented on contemporary social and political issues for the Huffington Post.
Adaptations which he also directed while at ART include a Pirandello trilogy: Six Characters in Search of an Author, ART Past Productions: Six Characters which won the Boston Theatre Award for Best Production of 1996, Right You Are (If You Think You Are), and Tonight We Improvise; Ibsen's Ghosts, ART Past Productions: Ghosts Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, Strindberg's The Father, and Thomas Middleton's The Changeling. Harvard Crimson review
Brustein also conceived and adapted the musical Shlemiel the First, based on the stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer and set to traditional klezmer music, which was directed and choreographed by David Gordon.According to Alvin Klein, writing in the New York Times: "It can be said that Singer is the original author, Mr. Brustein is the adapter and Mr. Gordon is the auteur."According to John Lahr, writing in The New Yorker: "In its artfulness and eloquence, "Shlemiel the First" is far better than anything currently on Broadway." After the original presentation in 1994 at ART ART Past Productions: Shlemiel the First and in Philadelphia at the American Music Theatre Festival, who co-produced the show, Shlemiel the First was revived several times in Cambridge and subsequently played at the Lincoln Center Serious Fun Festival, the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, ACT Production History and the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, Variety review as well as touring theatres on the east coast of Florida and in Stamford, Connecticut. 'Shlemiel' Continues A Path to Broadway The play has also been produced at Theater J Theater Shlemiel the First in Washington, D.C.. A remount of the original David Gordon production was presented by Peak Performances at Montclair State University's Kasser Theatre in January 2010, Shlemiel the First at Peak Performances and went on to a three-week run at New York University's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts.
Brustein's klezmer musical, with composer Hankus Netsky, The King of Second Avenue, an adaptation of Israel Zangwill's The King of the Schnorrers, was produced at the New Repertory Theatre in 2015. on the New Repertory Theatre website
Demons, which was broadcast on WGBH radio in 1993, had its stage world premiere as part of the American Repertory Theater New Stages Season. Nobody Dies on Friday was given its world premiere in the same series ART Past Productions: Nobody Dies On Friday and was presented at the Singapore Arts Festival and the Pushkin Theatre in Moscow. It was included in Marisa Smith's anthology New Playwrights: Best Plays of 1998. (2026). 157525171X, Smith and Kraus. 157525171X
Spring Forward, Fall Back was produced in 2006 at the Vineyard Playhouse Vineyard Playhouse Production History on Martha's Vineyard and at Theater J 2006–2007 Season in Washington. The English Channel was produced at the C. Walsh Theatre of Suffolk University in Boston and at the Vineyard Playhouse in the fall of 2007. Vineyard Playhouse: The English Channel In the Fall of 2008, it played at the Abingdon Theatre in New York where it was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
His short plays Poker Face, Chekhov on Ice, Divestiture, AnchorBimbo, Noises, Terrorist Skit, Airport Hell, Beachman's Last Poetry Reading, "Sex For a Change", and Kosher Kop were all presented by the Boston Playwrights' Theatre and form a play called "Seven/Elevens. BPT: Production History
Brustein was also the author of Doctor Hippocrates is Out: Please Leave a Message an anthology of theatrical and cinematic satire on medicine and physicians, commissioned by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement for its 2008 convention in Nashville. Brustein's musical satire, Exposed, was performed in 2014 at the Martha's Vineyard Playhouse. "Exposed" on the Martha's Vineyard Playhouse website
In 1996, Brustein married activist and academic Doreen Beinart. Through this marriage, he became the stepfather of journalist Peter Beinart and of Jean Stern.
Brustein died at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 29, 2023, at the age of 96.
In addition, Brustein received the Luigi Pirandello Medal, and a medal from the Egyptian government for contributions to world theatre. His papers are housed at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University. Howard Gottlieb Archival Research Center Acquires the Person Archive of Robert Brustein
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