Feist, Gene

Gene Feist, artistic director, playwright, producer, director and teacher.

Gene Feist (1923-) is an American artistic director, playwright, producer, director, teacher and co-founder of the Roundabout Theatre Company. Feist was born in New York City on January 16, 1923. In 1951 he graduated from Carnegie Institute of Technology with a BFA in Directing and Playwriting. The following year he received an MA from New York University in Educational Theatre. Over the next few years he studied with Lee Strasberg at the American Theatre Wing. In 1957, Feist married Kathe Snyder (Elizabeth Owens), an actress who frequently performed in early Roundabout Theatre productions. They have two daughters, Nicole and Gena.

During the 1950s and early 1960s, Feist worked for several different theatre companies, serving as Producer and Resident Playwright for the Two by Four Theatre; as General Manager and Production Coordinator at the Stamford Playhouse; as Founder and Executive Producer of the Renata Theatre; as General Manager and Publicist at the Sharon Playhouse; and as Producer and Artistic Director of the New Theatre Nashville. From 1962-1964 he was a drama critic for the Chelsea-Clinton News. He was also writing constantly during this period and he directed his plays Lust for a Nightingale and A Toy for the Clowns at the Actors' Studio, and Wretched the Lionhearted at the East End Theatre.

Feist and his wife, actress Elizabeth Owens, conceived the idea of the nonprofit Roundabout Theatre Company in 1965. Feist wanted to do classic plays by authors like Ibsen and Shaw and thought that a subscription series at an affordable price would be of interest to New Yorkers. Roundabout's first production of Strindberg's The Father was presented in a 150-seat theatre in the basement of a supermarket in Chelsea. In that first season, the company had four hundred subscribers who paid only $5.00 for three plays. In their early years, the Roundabout also produced original plays, which attracted well-known actors such as Kim Hunter, Vincent Price, Irene Worth, Tammy Grimes, Malcolm McDowell, and Philip Bosco.

While Roundabout was growing artistically, the company was struggling financially, filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1978. By 1983, the company had an accumulated $2.5 million deficit on a $1.5 million budget. Todd Haimes, came on board as Managing Director. Just two weeks later, the Board voted to close the theatre due to financial troubles. Board member Christian C. Yegen agreed to write checks to cover the payroll, and within two years, Roundabout emerged from Chapter 11 protection. In 1984, Roundabout staged its most acclaimed production up to that time, Peter Nichols' A Day in the Death of Joe Egg starring Jim Dale and Stockard Channing. The production moved to Broadway where it won the 1985 Tony®, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Outstanding Revival. Roundabout's growth continued with the opening of the 17th Street Theatre on January 30, 1985 with The Playboy of the Western World, starring Kate Burton and Ken Marshall.

In 1989, Gene Feist retired and Todd Haimes was appointed Artistic Director, but Feist continued to work with the Roundabout in the official capacity of Founder and Consultant. During the five years that followed, Roundabout's productions were nominated for 79 awards, including Tonys®, Drama Desks, Outer Critics Circle and Olivier Awards. Harold Pinter's The Homecoming was followed by other acclaimed productions, such as Friedrich Durrenmatt's The Visit with Jane Alexander and Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie starring Natasha Richardson and Liam Neeson, which won the 1993 Tony, Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk Awards for Best Revival. Later that season, Haimes expanded the theatre's mission to produce musicals, and Roundabout introduced its Great American Musical series with, She Loves Me, directed by Scott Ellis and choreographed by Rob Marshall, which successfully transferred to Broadway and was also produced in London, where it received five Olivier awards. In September 1995 the Roundabout produced the American premiere of Harold Pinter's Moonlight, starring Jason Robards and Blythe Danner. Roundabout had some of their biggest hits with the Tony Award® winning revivals of Cabaret, starring Natasha Richardson and Alan Cumming and Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's musical Assassins, directed by Joe Mantello. Since 1965, the Roundabout has grown from a small, off-Broadway theatre into one of the leading cultural institutions in New York City.

*From www.roundabouttheatre.org/history, retrieved 12/23/2010