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Mandell (Alan) papers
LSC.2123
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Contributing Institution:
UCLA Library Special Collections
Title: Alan Mandell papers
Creator:
Mandell, Alan (Alan J.)
source:
Mandell, Alan (Alan J.)
Identifier/Call Number: LSC.2123
Physical Description:
18.4 linear feet
(45 document boxes, 1 flat box)
Physical Description:
6 born-digital carriers
(5 optical disc, 1 floppy disk)
Physical Description:
3.1 linear feet
(3 unprocessed boxes)
Physical Description:
3.17 Gigabytes
(23 files, 12 folders)
Date (inclusive): 1927-2012
Date (bulk): 1956-2012
Abstract: Alan Mandell is an accomplished theater and film actor, theater manager, stage director, and producer. He was a founding member
of the San Francisco Actor's Workshop and the San Quentin Drama Workshop, managed the Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center,
and was consulting director for the Los Angeles Actors' Theatre and the Los Angeles Theater Center where he ran the Poetry
Literary Series. Mandell is considered to be a foremost interpreter and scholar of Samuel Beckett's works. Materials in this
collection document Mandell's professional career and include scripts, photographs, some personal materials, and correspondence
with many notable literary and theater figures, including Beckett.
Physical Location: Stored off-site. All requests to access special collections material must be made in advance using the request button located
on this page.
Language of Material: Materials are in English.
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located
on this page.
Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
Property rights to the objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright, are retained
by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue
the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
CONTAINS DIGITAL AND AUDIOVISUAL MATERIALS: This collection contains both processed and unprocessed digital and audiovisual
materials. For information about the access status of the material that you are looking for, refer to the Physical Characteristics
and Technical Requirements note at the series and file levels. All requests to access processed digital and audiovisual materials
must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
Provenance/Source of Acquisition
Gift of Alan Mandell, 2012.
UCLA Catalog Record ID:
9971591113606533
[Identification of item], Alan Mandell papers (Collection 2123). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research
Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Digital materials were received on 5 optical discs. All digital file naming, organization, and arrangement created by Alan
Mandell was retained.
Collections are processed to a variety of levels depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived user
interest and research value, availability of staff and resources, and competing priorities. Library Special Collections provides
a standard level of preservation and access for all collections and, when time and resources permit, conducts more intensive
processing. These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards and best practices.
We are committed to providing ethical, inclusive, and anti-racist description of the materials we steward, and to remediating
existing description of our materials that contains language that may be offensive or cause harm. We invite you to submit
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Alan Mandell is an accomplished theater and film actor, theater manager, stage director, and producer. He is considered a
foremost interpreter and scholar of Samuel Beckett's works. He was born "Albert" on December 27, 1927 to a Jewish family in
Toronto, Canada, but officially changed his name to "Alan" in 1968. After serving as the Artistic Director of Theater '49
in Toronto in the early 1950s, he subsequently spent most of his working life in San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles.
Mandell became involved with the San Francisco Actor's Workshop in 1954 while visiting his sister, and he helped the group's
co-founders Jules Irving and Herbert Blau transform the Actor's Workshop into one of the first full-fledged regional theater
companies in the United States. On November 19, 1957, the Workshop put on a historically significant performance of its production
of Beckett's Waiting for Godot in San Quentin Prison, which was later discussed in Martin Esslin's influential Theatre of
the Absurd (1961). Mandell, as Lucky, struck a chord with the prisoners, and he ended up co-founding the San Quentin Drama
Workshop with inmate Rick Cluchey, who would go on to become an actor and playwright. During this period, Mandell also met
his future wife, Elizabeth Heller, and the two were married in 1967.
When Irving and Blau were selected to run the Repertory Theatre at Lincoln Center in New York, they asked Mandell to join
them in Manhattan as the company's manager. Blau left the Repertory after only a year, but Irving and Mandell remained through
1973. In the mid-1970s, Mandell moved west and joined the Los Angeles Actors' Theatre, which would transform into the Los
Angeles Theatre Center in 1985. He served as a consulting director and actor, and he developed and oversaw the Poetry/Literary
Series at the Center.
In addition to his time with these four major companies, Mandell worked on a wide range of seminal theatrical and film productions
throughout his career, including the 1973 Broadway revival of A Streetcar Named Desire and J.C. Mitchell's 2001 film, Hedwig
and the Angry Inch. Both he and Rick Cluchey collaborated directly with Beckett throughout the 1980s and continue to appear
in productions of Beckett's plays.
Materials in this collection document Mandell's professional career and include managerial records, scripts, signed monographs,
photographs, clippings, and correspondence with many notable literary and theater figures, including Samuel Beckett. Contents
may be of interest to scholars of literature, theater, performance studies, and arts management. The Beckett materials provide
an unusually comprehensive portrait of the writer's intentions with respect to staging his work. The theater company records—which
include financial documents, grant applications, interoffice communications, press, and programs—provide insight into the
process of balancing the practical and artistic goals of running a repertory. The files related to particular theater and
film productions not connected to those companies are more commonplace; they consist primarily of contracts, fan-mail, rehearsal
photographs, reviews, shooting schedules, and unmarked scripts. Digital materials (5 optical discs, 1 zip drive) primarily
contain promotional images and audio/visual recordings of Mandell's work.
This collection has been arranged in the following series. Series 1 and 3 are arranged chronologically. Series 2 and 4 are
arranged alphabetically. Series 5 is unordered.
- Series 1: Personal Materials, 1927-2012
- Series 2: Individual Files, 1954-2012
- Subseries 2.1: Samuel Beckett, 1954-2012
- Subseries 2.2: Other Individuals, 1956-2011
- Series 3: Theater Companies, 1954-1991
- Subseries 3.1: San Francisco Actor's Workshop, 1954-1988
- Subseries 3.2: San Quentin Drama Workshop, 1957-2008
- Subseries 3.3: Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center, 1965-2004
- Subseries 3.4: Los Angeles Actors' Theatre and Los Angeles Theatre Center, 1975-2002
- Series 4: Subject Files, 1965-2012
- Series 5: Audiovisual Materials, 1980-2010
Actor's Workshop and Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center records, 1947-1978 (bulk 1955-1973). Available at New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center. Billy Rose Theatre Division.
Record number: b19817948.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Mandell, Alan (Alan J.)
Mandell, Alan (Alan J.)