Description
This collection consists of typescripts of plays written or annotated by stage designer Mordecai Gorelik. Included are typescripts
of
Rainbow Terrace,
The Feast of Unreason, and
The Annotated Hamlet, Southern Illinois University's production of Shakespeare's
Hamlet. The collection also includes photocopies of three news articles and one photocopy of a letter.
Background
Mordecai (Max) Gorelik was an influential scene designer and theorist, known for his work on more than fifty professional
Broadway productions including Processional (1925), Men in White (1933), Golden Boy (1937), All My Sons (1947), and A Hatful of Rain (1957). Gorelik's published works include a book of plays, Toward a Larger Theatre: 7 Plays (1988) and a seminal text in the history of theater, New Theatres for Old (1940), which reflects his interest in Bertolt Brecht. Born in Russia in 1899, he immigrated to New York with his parents
as a child and later attended the Pratt Institute, graduating in 1920. Gorelik was professor of theater at Southern Illinois
University (1960 - 1972), and he also taught at a number of other colleges and universities including several in California.
He died in Sarasota, Florida, in 1990.
Restrictions
Property rights reside with the University of California. Literary rights are retained by the creators of the records and
their heirs. For permissions to reproduce or to publish, please contact the Head of Special Collections and Archives.