Dressing Room Stories: The Making of an Artist, (Paperback)

DRESSING ROOM STORIES: THE MAKING OF AN ARTIST is a fascinating and enormously entertaining collection of first-person stories from the early years of theater legend Alvin Epstein. Now 90, Alvin recalls his childhood in 1930s New York, his remarkable experiences during World War Two, his training at the hands of Martha Graham, Etienne Decroux, and Orson Welles, and his explosion onto the New York theater scene in the 1955-56 season as Lucky in the New York premiere of WAITING FOR GODOT. DRESSING ROOM STORIES is populated with the many iconic artists Alvin knew and worked with, among them Bert Lahr, Marcel Marceau, Etienne Decroux, Meryl Streep, an elderly Gordon Craig and a teenage Barbra Streisand. The book also contains numerous photos from Alvin's earliest performances. Written with longtime friend and colleague Jonathan Fried, DRESSING ROOM STORIES brings to print the stories Alvin first told Jonathan in their dressing room at the American Repertory Theater 25 years ago. Alvin's countless fans, colleagues, as well as theater students everywhere, will relish this long-awaited window into what made Alvin the unique American artist he is. "Actor/writer Jonathan Fried has produced a miraculous book that charts the life journeys and perceptive insights of the great American actor Alvin Epstein. Now ninety, Epstein illuminates the craft of acting like no one else. In conversation with Fried, Epstein captures an intense delight in the craft of acting combined with great psychological insight. The experience of reading the book is both enjoyable and profound." - Anne Bogart