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Townsend Tyler Brewster Biography (1924-)

Addresses: Home: 171-29 103rd Road, Jamaica, NY, 11433; Office: HarlemCultural Council, One West 125th Street, New York, NY, 10027; Agent: RoneladRoberts, 9214 Ridge Blvd., Brooklyn, NY, 11209.

"Wisely or unwisely, instead of capitalizing on my reported gifts as a scholar and critic, I have kept them ancillary to my creative writing. Eric Bentleyhas stated that in the American theatre, one finds whimsy rather than comedy.... For one who believes the greatest living dramatist to be Wole Soyinka and whose favorite playwrights are Marivaux, Brecht, Euripides, Corneille, andAnouilh, whimsy is not likely to be the strong suit. In music my favorites are Mozart, Donizetti, Offenbach, and Joplin, in painting, Fragonard, and in poetry, Gautier."

Nationality

American

Gender

Male

Occupation

playwright, translator

Birth Details

July 23, 1924

Glen Cove, Long Island, New York

Famous Works

• Non-Theatrical Career
• Copywriter, Hicks & Greist Advertising Agency, 1959-61; Librarian, Lennen & Newell Advertising Agency, 1962-67; editor/critic, Harlem Cultural Review, present.
• Plays Produced
• Little Girl/Big Town, 1953; Singapore Sling, Queens Community Theatre, 1955: Please Don't Cry and Say No, Circle-in-the Square (downtown), 1972; Though It's Been Said Many Times, Many Ways, Harlem Performance Center, 1976; The Girl Beneath the Tulip Tree, Harlem Performance Center, 1977; Black-Belt Bertram, Double Image Theatre.1979: Arthur Ashe and I, Theatre of Riverside Church, 1979.
• Librettos
• The Choreography of Love, WNYC radio, 1946; The Tower, Santa Fe Opera, 1957; "Squaw Winter" in Pinter's Revue Sketches, Weathervane Theatre, Akron OH, 1970; Interlude's Harlequinades for Mourners, New Theatre, NY, 1970; Of Angels and Donkeys, Israeli Music Publication; Lady Plum Blossom, Oregon State University, 1973.
• Translations
• Rudens, Plautus, 1958; How the West Was Fun; Chief Rathebe; Mowgli; The Bougival Vampire, University of Denver, 1968; The Brown Overcoat (Victor Séjour), Circle-in-the-Square (downtown), NY, 1972; The Botany Lesson, (Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis), Circle-in-the-Square (downtown), 1972; Fiancailles pour rire (Poulenc), 1976; L'Amant anonyme (18th-century black composer Joseph Boulogne, the Chevalier de Saint Georges), 1976; Cid, papers in the anthology Dramatic Theory and Criticism Greeks to Grotowski, 1974; The Cocktail Sip, 1982;The Liar (Corneille) Apollo Drama Company, 1984.
• Short Stories
• "The Widows Mite"; "An Evening with Josephine Baker," 1977.
• Poetry
• in Pioneer, Counterpoint, Classical Outlook, Commonweal, Dasein, OtherStages, Foothills, published in Today's Negro Voices, 1970.
• Theatre-Related Career
• Lecturer in Theatre Department, City College of New York, 1969-73.