Castillo Theatre Announces Dan Friedman As New Artistic Director

The president and CEO of the All Stars Project, Gabrielle L. Kurlander, announced the appointment of Dan Friedman, Ph.D. as the artistic director of the Castillo Theatre on Sunday, April 4. Friedman was preceded in this position by Fred Newman, who held it from 1989 through 2005, when he retired; Newman remains artistic director emeritus.

Dan Friedman helped to found Madison, Wisconsin's Theatre-in-the-Park and New York City's Theatre Collective and Workers' Stage, before becoming a founder of Castillo more than a quarter of a century ago. Since 1989, Friedman has served as Castillo's dramaturg. He has directed the All Stars' youth theatre, Youth Onstage!, and been dean of its free theatre training program, the Youth Onstage! Community Performance School. A playwright who has written or co-written 15 plays, he holds a doctorate in theatre history from the University of Wisconsin, and has taught theatre, public speaking and writing at Baruch College, Queensborough Community College, York College, and the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City.

Friedman is the editor of The Cultural Politics of Heiner Müller (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2006), Müller in America (Castillo Cultural Center, 2003), and Still on the Corner and Other Postmodern Political Plays by Fred Newman (Castillo Cultural Center, 1998), and co-editor, with Bruce McConachie, of Theatre for Working Class Audiences in the United States, 1830-1980 (Greenwood Press, 1985). He has written for such publications as The Drama Review, Modern Drama, Communications from the International Brecht Society, and Back Stage, among others.

Friedman was among the activist artists who established the Castillo Theatre in 1984. Privately funded from the beginning, Castillo has become known for creating theatre that is avant-garde, topical and entertaining. Its work features improvisation, the plays of Fred Newman, Heiner Müller and others, and it serves as a multi-racial home for Black theatre. Castillo is a program of the All Stars Project, Inc., along with its youth programs: the All Stars Talent Show Network, the Development School for Youth, Becoming Producers, and Youth Onstage!

Richard Schechner, editor of The Drama Review (TDR), and Professor of Performance Studies at NYU, congratulated Friedman: "Dan Friedman is old fashioned in the best way: he is totally focused on how to bring a better future into existence. He works, he researches, he dramaturges, he organizes, he cares; he is passionate, dedicated, intense, intelligent, restless, probing, open to new ideas and to a critique of old ideas. I have known Dan and worked in his presence for many years. He has helped make Castillo what it is even as Castillo has helped make Dan who he is. That Dan is now becoming Castillo's Artistic Director is only what should happen in the natural-social-political-artistic order of things. These huge concepts are interwoven. Dan knows this. And that is why Dan will do great work tomorrow as he did yesterday, and is doing today."

Toasts were led from the stage by: Ken Cerniglia, dramaturg and literary manager at Disney Theatrical Productions; Mario Fratti, theatre critic and playwright; Woodie King, Jr, founder and producing director of the New Federal Theatre; and Judith Malina, artistic director of The Living Theatre.

 

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