Jean-Claude van Itallie

Jean-Claude van Itallie, a seminal force in the explosive 1960s Off Broadway theatre, was born in Brussels, Belgium. When he was four, his family fled the Holocaust to suburban Great Neck, New York. Graduating from Harvard in 1958, in NYC van Itallie was a La MaMa, Caffe Cino, and Open Theater playwright. Among his many plays: universally acclaimed anti war trilogy America Hurrah, ensemble play The Serpent with the Open Theater, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Bag Lady, The Traveler, Struck Dumb with Joseph Chaikin, Light, and much produced translations of Chekhov’s major plays. Author of Playwright’s Workbook, van Itallie teaches play writing and acting workshops around the US in colleges and retreat centers. In 2012, he performed his one-man show, Confessions and Conversation at La MaMa in NYC. His book Tea with Demons, games of transformation offers personal stories and forty-nine games for the reader to play. Jean-Claude van Itallie lives on his old farm in Western Massachusetts where he directs Shantigar Foundation for theatre, meditation, and healing, and in Greenwich Village, NYC.