Magic Theatre
Hide Profile
Organizational History
The Magic Theatre was founded in 1967 in Berkeley, Calif., with a production of Eugene Ionesco's, The Lesson, by a group of University of California, Berkeley graduate students, headed by John Lion, who had an interest in the newly emerging, avant-garde European playwrights, including Ionesco, Genet, and Beckett. They had no intention of starting a theatre, but with the success of The Lesson, the company moved into the Steppenwolf Bar on San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley, and began producing plays as the Magic Theatre, a name adopted from Hesse's novel, Steppenwolf.
European playwrights dominated the Magic Theatre's early productions, but these were soon augmented by American authors emerging from the political, social, and artistic ferment of the 1960s, including Leroi Jones, Michael McClure, and Sam Shepard. The work of the Magic Theatre reflected the social upheaval of the time, with the intention of presenting different aspects of a chaotic world without becoming polarized to one point of view. Magic Theatre's goal was to concentrate its efforts on newly scripted works, with the purpose of developing new playwrights and giving an alternative, experimental forum to established writers. They drew not only from the theatrical community but from the talents of people in many areas of the arts --painters, sculptors, film makers, poets, musicians, and dancers, and deliberately represented no particular political point of view except that of free expression.
Over the past twenty-five years, the Magic Theatre was housed in some ten locations, not including touring bookings. There were several stints each at Steppenwolf and Mandrake's Bars in Berkeley. They also performed at the University Art Museum, and in a theatre the staff built in an old building at the corner of University and Shattuck Avenues until 1972, when the company moved permanently to San Francisco. It was located briefly in the Firehouse Theatre (now the Lumier Cinema), the Museum of Erotic Art (now defunct), the Intersection Theatre, and the Rose and Thistle Pub on California and Polk Streets. In 1977, the Magic Theatre finally moved to a permanent home at Fort Mason, and eventually built two playhouses of its own.
From the very beginning, John Lion assumed the role of general and artistic director, and brought the theatre from a group of college students with no base and no funding to become the Bay Area's leading producer of new plays. In 1976, Lion recruited the British theatre critic and essayist, Martin Esslin, as dramaturg. His early books on Brecht, the theatre of the absurd, and avant-garde European plays had been the strongest guidelines to the originators of the Magic Theatre.
Not every production at the Magic Theatre has been a smashing success. But the experimental theatre has witnessed an increasing number of subscribers and plays each year, and both local and national critics have been following their progress with much interest and acclaim.
From the guide to the Magic Theatre Scripts, 1966-1990, (The Bancroft Library.)
Role | Title | Holding Repository | |
---|---|---|---|
creatorOf | Magic Theatre Scripts, 1966-1990 | Bancroft Library |
Filters:
Corporate Body
Variant Names
Shared Related Resources
Magic Theatre
Magic Theatre | Title |
---|