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Charles Ludlam

January 07, 2023

Charles Braun Ludlam (April 12, 1943 – May 28, 1987) was an American actor, director, and playwright.

Charles Ludlam
Born(1943-04-12)April 12, 1943
Floral Park, New York, United States
DiedMay 28, 1987(1987-05-28) (aged 44)
New York, New York, United States
Alma materHofstra University
PartnerEverett Quinton

Biography

Early life

Ludlam was born in Floral Park, New York, the son of Marjorie (née Braun) and Joseph William Ludlam.[1][2] He was raised in Greenlawn, New York, and attended Harborfields High School. He was openly gay, and performed in plays with the Township Theater Group, a community theatre in Huntington, and worked backstage at the Red Barn Theater, a summer stock theatre in Northport. During his senior year of high school, Ludlam directed, produced, and performed plays with a group of friends, students from Huntington, Northport, Greenlawn, and Centerport. Their "Students Repertory Theatre", housed in the loft studio beneath the Posey School of Dance on Main Street in Northport, seated an audience of 25, and was sold out for every performance.[citation needed] Their repertoire included Kan Kikuchi's Madman on the Roof; Theatre of the Soul; a readers' theatre adaptation of Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology; and plays by August Strindberg and Eugene O'Neill.

He received a degree in dramatic literature from Hofstra University in 1964. At Hofstra, Ludlam met Black-Eyed Susan, whom he cast in one of his college productions. The two became close friends, and Black-Eyed Susan performed in more of Ludlam's plays over the following decades than any other actor, except Ludlam himself.[3]

Career

Ludlam joined John Vaccaro's Play-House of the Ridiculous, and after a falling out, founded his own Ridiculous Theatrical Company in 1967. His first plays were rudimentary exercises; starting with Bluebeard, he began writing more structured plays, which were often pastiches of gothic novels; works by Federico Garcia Lorca, Shakespeare, and Richard Wagner; and popular culture and old movies. These works were humorous but had serious undertones. After seeing one of Ludlam's plays, theater critic Brendan Gill famously remarked, "This isn't farce. This isn't absurd. This is absolutely ridiculous!". Ludlam commented on his own work:

I would say that my work falls into the classical tradition of comedy. Over the years there have been certain traditional approaches to comedy. As a modern artist you have to advance the tradition. I want to work within the tradition so that I don't waste my time trying to establish new conventions. You can be very original within the established conventions.[4]

Ludlam's Bluebeard was produced at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, where Vaccaro's company was in residence, in March 1970. Ludlam performed in this production as Khanazar von Bluebeard. Black-Eyed-Susan, Lola Pashalinski, and Mario Montez also performed in this production.[5] In 1976 he appeared in Rosa von Praunheim's New York film Underground and Emigrants.

He taught and/or staged productions at New York University, Connecticut College, Yale University, and Carnegie Mellon University.[citation needed] He won fellowships from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Ford Foundations, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts.[citation needed] He won six Obie Awards over the course of his career, including a Sustained Excellence Obie Award two weeks before his death in 1987,[6] and won the Rosamund Gilder Award for distinguished achievement in the theater in 1986.[citation needed]

Ludlam often appeared in his plays, and was particularly noted for his female roles. He wrote one of the first plays to address, though indirectly, the AIDS epidemic. His most well-known play is The Mystery of Irma Vep, in which two actors play seven roles in a pastiche of gothic horror novels. The original production featured Ludlam and his partner Everett Quinton. Rights to perform the play include a stipulation that the actors must be of the same sex, in order to ensure cross-dressing in the production.[citation needed] In 1991, Irma Vep was the most produced play in the United States;[7] and in 2003, it became the longest-running production ever staged in Brazil.[8][9]

Ludlam was diagnosed with AIDS in March 1987. He attempted to fight the disease with his lifelong interest in healthy eating and a macrobiotic diet, but died a month after his AIDS diagnosis, of PCP pneumonia, at St. Vincent's Hospital. His front page obituary in the New York Times was the newspaper's first page 1 obituary to specifically name AIDS as a cause of death (with Ludlam's parents' consent), instead of the AIDS-related illnesses such as pneumonia commonly cited at the time.[10] The block in front of his Sheridan Square theater was renamed "Charles Ludlam Lane" in his honor.[citation needed]

In 2009, Ludlam was inducted posthumously into the American Theater Hall of Fame.[11] After his death, "Walter Ego", the dummy from Ludlam's 1978 play The Ventriloquist's Wife, was donated to the Vent Haven Museum in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, where it remains on exhibit; the puppet was designed and built by actor and puppetmaker Alan Semok.[citation needed]

Selected works

Plays (as playwright)

  • Big Hotel (1967)
  • Conquest of the Universe, or When Queens Collide (1968)
  • Turds in Hell (1969) adaptation of Satyricon
  • The Grand Tarot (1969)
  • Bluebeard (1970) adaptation of H. G. Wells's The Island of Dr Moreau
  • Eunuchs of the Forbidden City (1971)
  • Corn (1972)
  • Camille (1973)
  • Hot Ice (1974)
  • Stage Blood (1975) adaptation of Hamlet
  • Tabu Tableaux (1975)
  • Caprice (1976)
  • Jack and the Beanstalk (1976)
  • Der Ring Gott Farblonjet (1977) adaptation of The Ring Cycle
  • The Ventriloquist's Wife (1978)
  • Utopia, Incorporated (1979)
  • The Enchanted Pig (1979)
  • Elephant Woman (1979)
  • A Christmas Carol (1979)
  • Reverse Psychology (1980)
  • Love's Tangled Web (1981)
  • Secret Lives of the Sexists (1982)
  • Exquisite Torture (1982)
  • Le Bourgeois Avant-Garde (1983) adaptation of Molière's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme
  • Galas (1983) inspired by the life of Maria Callas
  • The Mystery of Irma Vep (1984)
  • How to Write a Play (1984)
  • Salammbo (1985) adaptation of Gustave Flaubert's Salammbo (novel)
  • The Artificial Jungle (1986)

Puppet shows

  • Professor Bedlam's Educational Punch and Judy Show
  • Anti-Galaxie Nebulae

Plays (as actor)

Plays (as director)

Films (as actor)

  • The Life, Death and Assumption of Lupe Velez by José Rodriguez-Soltero (as The Lesbian) (1966)
  • Underground and Emigrants
  • Reel 6: Charles Ludlam's Grand Tarot (1970)
  • Imposters (1980)
  • Museum of Wax
  • Doomed Love (1983)
  • The Big Easy (1987)
  • Forever, Lulu (1987)
  • She Must Be Seeing Things (1988)

Television (as actor)

References

  1. ^ Kaufman, David (February 16, 2003). "Ridiculous!". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 16, 2018.
  2. ^ "Charles Ludlam Biography (1943–1987)". www.filmreference.com. Retrieved May 16, 2018.
  3. ^ Simon, Kate. "Black-Eyed Susan". BOMB Magazine. Spring 1988. Retrieved July 26, 2020.
  4. ^ Castle, Ted. "Charles Ludlam and Christopher Scott". BOMB Magazine. Winter 1982. Retrieved July 26, 2020.
  5. ^ La MaMa Archives Digital Collections. "Production: 'Ridiculous Theater Company Presents: Bluebeard' (1970)". Accessed May 16, 2018.
  6. ^ "87 | Obie Awards". Obie Awards. Retrieved May 16, 2018.
  7. ^ . Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Archived from the original on November 2, 2004.
  8. ^ Gussow, Mel. "Books of the Times; The Roman-Candle Life of a Downtown Original", The New York Times, January 29, 2003
  9. ^ Scheib, Ronnie. "Irma Vep - She's Back!", Variety, August 21, 2006
  10. ^ Rosenzweig, Leah (November 30, 2018). "Cause of Death: Uncovering the hidden history of AIDS on the New York Times obituary page". Slate.com. Retrieved December 1, 2018.
  11. ^ . Archived from the original on December 3, 2013. Retrieved September 2, 2012.

Further reading

  • Baron, Michael, The Whore of Sheridan Square (a play inspired by the life of Charles Ludlam) in Plays and Playwrights 2006 An Anthology, edited by Martin Denton, 2006. ISBN 0-9670234-7-5
  • Edgecomb, Sean, Charles Ludlam Lives!: Charles Busch, Bradford Louryk, Taylor Mac, and the Queer Legacy of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, 2017. ISBN 0-47205-355-8
  • Kaufman, David A., Ridiculous!: The Theatrical Life and Times of Charles Ludlam, 2002. ISBN 1-55783-588-8
  • Ludlam, Charles, Ridiculous Theatre: Scourge of Human Folly: The Essays and Opinions of Charles Ludlam, edited by Steven Samuels, 1992. ISBN 1-55936-041-0
  • Ludlam. The Complete Plays of Charles Ludlam, edited by Steven Samuels. ISBN 0-06-055172-0
  • Roemer, Rick, Charles Ludlam and the Ridiculous Theatrical Company: Critical Analyses of 29 Plays by Rick Roemer, 1998. ISBN 0-7864-0340-3
  • Katz, Leandro, Bedlam Days: The Early Plays of Charles Ludlam and The Ridiculous Theatrical Company, ISBN 978-987-24581-3-3

External links

  • Charles Ludlam at IMDb
  • Charles Ludlam at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
  • BOMB Magazine interview with Charles Ludlam and Christopher Scott by Ted Castle (Winter, 1982)
  • Charles Ludlam papers, 1967–1989. Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
  • Bedlam Days (the early plays by Charles Ludlam)
  • "Bluebeard" The seduction of Miss Cubbidge, audio and photographs by Leandro Katz (1970) (Vimeo)
  • Ludlam's page on La MaMa Archives Digital Collections
  • “John Vaccaro and The Theatre of the Ridiculous” A brief interview recalling the actors’ walkout during rehearsals of The Conquest of the Universe, and his friendship with Charles Ludlam, by Leandro Katz

January 07, 2023
charles, ludlam, charles, braun, ludlam, april, 1943, 1987, american, actor, director, playwright, born, 1943, april, 1943floral, park, york, united, statesdiedmay, 1987, 1987, aged, york, york, united, statesalma, materhofstra, universitypartnereverett, quint. Charles Braun Ludlam April 12 1943 May 28 1987 was an American actor director and playwright Charles LudlamBorn 1943 04 12 April 12 1943Floral Park New York United StatesDiedMay 28 1987 1987 05 28 aged 44 New York New York United StatesAlma materHofstra UniversityPartnerEverett Quinton Contents 1 Biography 1 1 Early life 1 2 Career 2 Selected works 2 1 Plays as playwright 2 2 Puppet shows 2 3 Plays as actor 2 4 Plays as director 2 5 Films as actor 2 6 Television as actor 3 References 4 Further reading 5 External linksBiography EditEarly life Edit Ludlam was born in Floral Park New York the son of Marjorie nee Braun and Joseph William Ludlam 1 2 He was raised in Greenlawn New York and attended Harborfields High School He was openly gay and performed in plays with the Township Theater Group a community theatre in Huntington and worked backstage at the Red Barn Theater a summer stock theatre in Northport During his senior year of high school Ludlam directed produced and performed plays with a group of friends students from Huntington Northport Greenlawn and Centerport Their Students Repertory Theatre housed in the loft studio beneath the Posey School of Dance on Main Street in Northport seated an audience of 25 and was sold out for every performance citation needed Their repertoire included Kan Kikuchi s Madman on the Roof Theatre of the Soul a readers theatre adaptation of Edgar Lee Masters Spoon River Anthology and plays by August Strindberg and Eugene O Neill He received a degree in dramatic literature from Hofstra University in 1964 At Hofstra Ludlam met Black Eyed Susan whom he cast in one of his college productions The two became close friends and Black Eyed Susan performed in more of Ludlam s plays over the following decades than any other actor except Ludlam himself 3 Career EditLudlam joined John Vaccaro s Play House of the Ridiculous and after a falling out founded his own Ridiculous Theatrical Company in 1967 His first plays were rudimentary exercises starting with Bluebeard he began writing more structured plays which were often pastiches of gothic novels works by Federico Garcia Lorca Shakespeare and Richard Wagner and popular culture and old movies These works were humorous but had serious undertones After seeing one of Ludlam s plays theater critic Brendan Gill famously remarked This isn t farce This isn t absurd This is absolutely ridiculous Ludlam commented on his own work I would say that my work falls into the classical tradition of comedy Over the years there have been certain traditional approaches to comedy As a modern artist you have to advance the tradition I want to work within the tradition so that I don t waste my time trying to establish new conventions You can be very original within the established conventions 4 Ludlam s Bluebeard was produced at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club where Vaccaro s company was in residence in March 1970 Ludlam performed in this production as Khanazar von Bluebeard Black Eyed Susan Lola Pashalinski and Mario Montez also performed in this production 5 In 1976 he appeared in Rosa von Praunheim s New York film Underground and Emigrants He taught and or staged productions at New York University Connecticut College Yale University and Carnegie Mellon University citation needed He won fellowships from the Guggenheim Rockefeller and Ford Foundations and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts citation needed He won six Obie Awards over the course of his career including a Sustained Excellence Obie Award two weeks before his death in 1987 6 and won the Rosamund Gilder Award for distinguished achievement in the theater in 1986 citation needed Ludlam often appeared in his plays and was particularly noted for his female roles He wrote one of the first plays to address though indirectly the AIDS epidemic His most well known play is The Mystery of Irma Vep in which two actors play seven roles in a pastiche of gothic horror novels The original production featured Ludlam and his partner Everett Quinton Rights to perform the play include a stipulation that the actors must be of the same sex in order to ensure cross dressing in the production citation needed In 1991 Irma Vep was the most produced play in the United States 7 and in 2003 it became the longest running production ever staged in Brazil 8 9 Ludlam was diagnosed with AIDS in March 1987 He attempted to fight the disease with his lifelong interest in healthy eating and a macrobiotic diet but died a month after his AIDS diagnosis of PCP pneumonia at St Vincent s Hospital His front page obituary in the New York Times was the newspaper s first page 1 obituary to specifically name AIDS as a cause of death with Ludlam s parents consent instead of the AIDS related illnesses such as pneumonia commonly cited at the time 10 The block in front of his Sheridan Square theater was renamed Charles Ludlam Lane in his honor citation needed In 2009 Ludlam was inducted posthumously into the American Theater Hall of Fame 11 After his death Walter Ego the dummy from Ludlam s 1978 play The Ventriloquist s Wife was donated to the Vent Haven Museum in Fort Mitchell Kentucky where it remains on exhibit the puppet was designed and built by actor and puppetmaker Alan Semok citation needed Selected works EditPlays as playwright Edit Big Hotel 1967 Conquest of the Universe or When Queens Collide 1968 Turds in Hell 1969 adaptation of Satyricon The Grand Tarot 1969 Bluebeard 1970 adaptation of H G Wells s The Island of Dr Moreau Eunuchs of the Forbidden City 1971 Corn 1972 Camille 1973 Hot Ice 1974 Stage Blood 1975 adaptation of Hamlet Tabu Tableaux 1975 Caprice 1976 Jack and the Beanstalk 1976 Der Ring Gott Farblonjet 1977 adaptation of The Ring Cycle The Ventriloquist s Wife 1978 Utopia Incorporated 1979 The Enchanted Pig 1979 Elephant Woman 1979 A Christmas Carol 1979 Reverse Psychology 1980 Love s Tangled Web 1981 Secret Lives of the Sexists 1982 Exquisite Torture 1982 Le Bourgeois Avant Garde 1983 adaptation of Moliere s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme Galas 1983 inspired by the life of Maria Callas The Mystery of Irma Vep 1984 How to Write a Play 1984 Salammbo 1985 adaptation of Gustave Flaubert s Salammbo novel The Artificial Jungle 1986 Puppet shows Edit Professor Bedlam s Educational Punch and Judy Show Anti Galaxie NebulaePlays as actor Edit The Life of Lady Godiva by Ronald Tavel as Peeping Tom Indira Gandhi s Daring Device by Ronald Tavel as Kamaraj Screen Test by Ronald Tavel as Norma Desmond Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen as Hedda Gabler American Ibsen Theatre Pittsburgh 1984 directed by Mel Shapiro dramaturg Micheael X Zelenak assistant to the director Hafiz Karmali Plays as director Edit Whores of Babylon by Bill Vehr 1968 The English Cat by Hans Werner Henze American premiere Santa Fe Opera 1985 Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss II Santa Fe Opera Films as actor Edit The Life Death and Assumption of Lupe Velez by Jose Rodriguez Soltero as The Lesbian 1966 Underground and Emigrants Reel 6 Charles Ludlam s Grand Tarot 1970 Imposters 1980 Museum of Wax Doomed Love 1983 The Big Easy 1987 Forever Lulu 1987 She Must Be Seeing Things 1988 Television as actor Edit Miami Vice Tales from the Dark Side Oh Madeline References Edit Kaufman David February 16 2003 Ridiculous The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved May 16 2018 Charles Ludlam Biography 1943 1987 www filmreference com Retrieved May 16 2018 Simon Kate Black Eyed Susan BOMB Magazine Spring 1988 Retrieved July 26 2020 Castle Ted Charles Ludlam and Christopher Scott BOMB Magazine Winter 1982 Retrieved July 26 2020 La MaMa Archives Digital Collections Production Ridiculous Theater Company Presents Bluebeard 1970 Accessed May 16 2018 87 Obie Awards Obie Awards Retrieved May 16 2018 about the rep gt past productions gt 2003 4 gt The Mystery of Irma Vep Berkeley Repertory Theatre Archived from the original on November 2 2004 Gussow Mel Books of the Times The Roman Candle Life of a Downtown Original The New York Times January 29 2003 Scheib Ronnie Irma Vep She s Back Variety August 21 2006 Rosenzweig Leah November 30 2018 Cause of Death Uncovering the hidden history of AIDS on the New York Times obituary page Slate com Retrieved December 1 2018 Playbill com Archived from the original on December 3 2013 Retrieved September 2 2012 Further reading EditBaron Michael The Whore of Sheridan Square a play inspired by the life of Charles Ludlam in Plays and Playwrights 2006 An Anthology edited by Martin Denton 2006 ISBN 0 9670234 7 5 Edgecomb Sean Charles Ludlam Lives Charles Busch Bradford Louryk Taylor Mac and the Queer Legacy of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company 2017 ISBN 0 47205 355 8 Kaufman David A Ridiculous The Theatrical Life and Times of Charles Ludlam 2002 ISBN 1 55783 588 8 Ludlam Charles Ridiculous Theatre Scourge of Human Folly The Essays and Opinions of Charles Ludlam edited by Steven Samuels 1992 ISBN 1 55936 041 0 Ludlam The Complete Plays of Charles Ludlam edited by Steven Samuels ISBN 0 06 055172 0 Roemer Rick Charles Ludlam and the Ridiculous Theatrical Company Critical Analyses of 29 Plays by Rick Roemer 1998 ISBN 0 7864 0340 3 Katz Leandro Bedlam Days The Early Plays of Charles Ludlam and The Ridiculous Theatrical Company ISBN 978 987 24581 3 3External links EditCharles Ludlam at IMDb Charles Ludlam at the Internet Off Broadway Database BOMB Magazine interview with Charles Ludlam and Christopher Scott by Ted Castle Winter 1982 Charles Ludlam papers 1967 1989 Billy Rose Theatre Division New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Bedlam Days the early plays by Charles Ludlam Bluebeard The seduction of Miss Cubbidge audio and photographs by Leandro Katz 1970 Vimeo Ludlam s page on La MaMa Archives Digital Collections John Vaccaro and The Theatre of the Ridiculous A brief interview recalling the actors walkout during rehearsals of The Conquest of the Universe and his friendship with Charles Ludlam by Leandro Katz Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Charles Ludlam amp oldid 1092418358, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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