Alvin Epstein
Alvin Epstein (May 14, 1925 – December 10, 2018) was an American actor and director. He was a founding member of both the American Repertory Theater and Yale Repertory Theatre. He was particularly admired for his performances in the plays of Samuel Beckett. He also served as Artistic Director at the Guthrie Theater.
Born in the Bronx, Epstein was the son of Harry Epstein, a physician, and his wife Goldie Epstein (née Rudnick). He graduated from the High School of Music & Art in Manhattan and the Queens College, City University of New York. After serving in the United States Army during World War II in Germany, he studied dance in New York with Martha Graham and mime in Paris. His early performances in New York City included appearing in mimes with Marcel Marceau. In 1956 he made his Broadway debut as the Fool in Orson Welles’ 1956 production of William Shakespear's King Lear. That same year he portrayed the slave Lucky in the Broadway premiere of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.
Epstein continued to appear in many productions of Beckett's plays, including Clov, the servant, in the United States premiere of Endgame in 1958. He portrayed two more characters in that play during his career: Hamm, Clov’s tyrannical blind master, in a 1984 Off-Broadway production that he also directed, at the Samuel Beckett Theater; and Hamm’s aged father, Nagg, who lives in a garbage can, performed at the Irish Repertory Theatre in Manhattan in 2005 and again, in 2008, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Known For | Acting |
---|---|
Most Rating | 4.351 |
Birthday | 1925-05-14 |
Place of Birth | Bronx, New York, United States |
Also Known As |
1991
Beauty and the Beast
7.7/9746
Follow the adventures of Belle, a bright young woman who finds herself in the castle of a prince who's been turned into a mysterious beast. With the h...
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Beauty and the Beast
1975
Everybody Rides the Carousel
5.8/5
Everybody Rides The Carousel invites the viewer along on eight "rides" through the different stages of life. Based on the work by Erik Erikson, one o...
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Everybody Rides the Carousel
2014
My America
0/0
21 monologues written by American playwrights form a sort of fractured portrait of the American collective psyche. Ranging from the sad to the hilario...
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My America
1961
Waiting for Godot
6/1
Two derelicts, Vladimir and Estragon, occupy themselves as they wait for 'Godot' to make an appearance on Pozzo's estate.
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Waiting for Godot
1996
Never Met Picasso
4.2/4
Still living at home with his avant-garde actress mother, constantly rejected by art schools, and without a lover, aspiring painter Andrew decides to...
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Never Met Picasso
1969
Story Theatre
0/0
Brothers Grimm tales like "The Golden Goose," "The Bremen Town Musicians" and "The Blue Light" come to life in this stripped-down stage production, wh...
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Story Theatre
1986
Doing Life
3/1
Tony Danza stars in this prison drama about Jerome "Jerry" Rosenburg, a self-professed "jailhouse lawyer" who defends himself against the homicide cha...
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Doing Life
1991
Age Isn't Everything
2/3
Young man gives up his dream of becoming an astronaut to go into business — and finds himself turned into a little old man.
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Age Isn't Everything
2014
Engram
0/0
An elderly woman enters a Manhattan subway station only to find herself sitting on a bench beside an elderly man of roughly the same age. As they sit...
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Engram
2008
Synecdoche, New York
7.554/1376
A theater director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as...
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