![]() ![]() This included serving as loyal confidant to both Ellis and Rosemary during their painful divorce in 1967 O'Brien offers a first-hand account of the violent-yet-somehow grandly theatrical battle that ended the marriage, at which he was an unwilling observer. The job was all encompassing, with his duties including myriad artistic, business and personal activities. O'Brien joined the company as an auxiliary member, a student actor playing bit roles maintained contact with the APA family when they moved back to New York and ultimately left a teaching job at Hunter College to become assistant to Ellis and Rosemary. He made his way to the theatre department at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where in 1961 he intersected with Rabb, his actress/wife Rosemary Harris, and the fledgling APA. O'Brien, mind you, was not the Alfred Drake type, then or now.) , a non-profit repertory company which was born in 1959, broke through to Broadway in 1965, and died in 1969.īorn in 1939 in Saginaw, Michigan, O'Brien was your typical Broadway-obsessed lad he was, he tells us, "self-trained practically from the pediatric ward in the role of Hajj." (Readers who are similarly Broadway-obsessed will know that he is talking of Kismet, which wasn't written until 1953, but you get the point. ![]() Rabb poured his creative energies into the A.P.A. O'Brien had a similarly outsized mentor dominating his career, influencing his decisions, and ultimately becoming an obstacle: Ellis Rabb, a flamboyant and wildly (but not consistently) talented actor/director. Hart placed his spotlight on the legendary playwright/director George S. "Jack Be Nimble" is an ever-interesting chronicle offering a perceptive overview of the dramatic stage of the 1960s and 1970s, but it is enhanced by being written so enjoyably well.Ĭomparisons to Moss Hart's "Act One" are, under the circumstances, unavoidable. What is unexpected, though, is that he turns out to be a very good writer as well. One would expect Jack O'Brien - the three-time Tony Award-winning director of musicals ( Hairspray), dramas ( The Coast of Utopia), and a host of other memorable shows - to be a warmly entertaining fellow with myriad tales to tell in his memoir, "Jack Be Nimble: The Accidental Education of an Unintentional Director". ![]()
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