Meir Ribalow
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B.A., Princeton
Artist-in-Residence, Fordham
Faculty Memorial Hall 436-A
718-817-4870
mzr66@verizon.net |
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Courses:
Movies and the American Experience
Screenwriting
Genre Film
Great Directors
American Film Comedy
International Cinema
Introduction to Media Industries
Film Director as Auteur
Media on Media
Mr. Ribalow has had 23 plays receive 175 productions worldwide. They have won awards in London, New York, Chicago and regionally. Sundance has been produced several times in London, New York, at Dublin's Abbey Theatre, and internationally; and his musical theatre piece
7 Deadly Sins (with music by Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Tom Constanten) was recently premiered in Charlotte. His plays
Raindance,
Sundance and
Moondance are all scheduled to be produced in L.A. in 2007.
He has had several screenplays optioned; won national awards for fiction, his widely published poetry, and musical lyrics; co-written books on sports, baseball, chess, and ten children’s books; and published articles on music, theatre, literature, film, travel, and chess. He can be heard on Icons Radio Hour discussing classic films with co-host and documentary filmmaker John Mulholland. He was film columnist for The Sciences magazine, and was featured as the film scholar on a Discovery Channel television feature on how films portray scientists. He appears as a film historian on a number of documentaries and upcoming DVD releases of classic films including High Noon, Sergeant York, Shane, and Ride the High Country. Director of a prize-winning sports web site, he also co-wrote the program for the 1990 World Chess Championship, and appears as a baseball historian on a documentary film about the famous ballplayer/super-spy Moe Berg.
He was Joseph Papp's Production Associate at the New York Shakespeare Festival for several years, founded The American Repertory Company of London, and directed the world premiere of a new play by Pulitzer Prize-winner N. Scott Momaday at the Kennedy Center in Washington. He is Artistic Director of New River Dramatists, a creative center in North Carolina that brings writers and actors together to develop new work. In 7 summers, New River has developed 315 new plays and screenplays, 140 of which have already been produced or optioned. He was longtime Vice-President of The Creative Coalition (with President Alec Baldwin), a non-partisan, not-for-profit group of entertainment and arts people active in social and political issues. As the International Arts Coordinator for The Global Forum, he has worked with The Dalai Lama, Mikhail Gorbachev, Andrei Vosnesensky and Thor Heyerdahl. A graduate of Phillips Exeter and of Princeton University (as a University Scholar), he has taught and lectured widely at a number of universities here and abroad.
In 2009, four of my plays have been fully produced in New York City, with two more scheduled for December.
Sundance, which was produced at Ensemble Studio Theatre, received glowing reviews, as did
Shrunken Heads, produced at Playwrights Horizons at their Peter Jay Sharp Theatre. The other plays of mine that have been produced this year are
Goldfish, which is to be presented by a different theatre in December,
The Reckoning, at the American Theatre of Actors (it was earlier produced in Los Angeles) and
Tiff, which will be done in rep with the upcoming performance of Goldfish.
A chapter from my not-yet-published novel Redheaded Blues – awarded a Rinehart Foundation grant and a fellowship at the UCross Artists Colony – will be excerpted in the upcoming book Luck, A Short & Incomplete Guide (Lorimer Press, 2010). I also wrote the cover story on Humphrey Bogart for Icons magazine premiere issue (2007).
I am Artistic Director of New River, which in the past decade has developed 345 new plays and screenplays almost half of which have already been produced or optioned. New River writers have recently won the National Book Award (Denis Johnson), the National Medal of Arts (Pulitzer laureate N. Scott Momaday), the August Wilson Prize (Cassandra Medley) and the $100,000 Simonovitch Prize (John Mighton).
I have just been given a publishing imprint for which I will be sole editor: New River Dramatists, to be published by McFarland Books. The first volume of three new American plays, which I will choose and edit, will appear in early 2010. The intent is for 3-6 plays to be published annually through this series.
I have within the past four months launched New River Fiction, a program that casts actors in short stories and presents evenings of fiction by major authors in universities and theatres nationwide. Programs have already been held, or are about to be, in Arkansas and North Carolina as well as Los Angeles and New York.
I appeared as a film historian on Special Feature documentaries – identified as a film scholar from Fordham – on newly re-released DVDs of classic films High Noon (2008) and Sergeant York (2006).
I also am Artistic Director of The Playwrights Workshop at the Players Club, which develops new plays, and Poetry at The Players, which presents readings of great classic poetry. In addition, I am co-host of IconsRadio.com, an online radio show on which film scholar John Mulholland and I discuss classic films.
Selected Publications:
Books
Sanctuary, a poem, with photographs (Tokyo FM Publishing, 1993)
The Gallavants series of children's books (Bra Bocker, 1988)
Great Jewish Chess Champions, co-authored with Harold U. Ribalow (Hippocrene Books, 1987)
The Jew in American Sports, co-authored with Harold U. Ribalow (Hippocrene Books, 1985)
Jewish Baseball Stars, co-authored with Harold U. Ribalow (Hippocrene Books, 1985)
Raindance, a play (Samuel French, 1985)
Sundance, a play (Samuel French, 1981)
Shrunken Heads, a play (Samuel French, 1980)
Articles Sampler
“Humphrey Bogart,” Icons magazine, Premiere Issue, Fall 2007
“Flock of Dodos” Science and Theology News, 2006
“Script Doctors: How Movies Portray Scientists,” The Sciences magazine, September 1998
"Israel's Mood On Film," Hadassah magazine, September, 1988
"The Growing Legend of Moe Berg," Princeton Alumni Weekly, June 1, 1984.
"Irwin Shaw: An Appreciation," Jewish Week, June 1984
"Routes of Exile," Congress Monthly, May1983
"Where Are All the New Playwrights? Writing Plays," The New York Sunday Times,
Arts and Leisure, December 29, 1974
Short Fiction
"The Messianic Rage," Hadassah magazine, March 1984
"A Ride in the Car-Car," The Nassau Lit, 1974
Poetry
"Sanctuary," as a book, Tokyo FM Publishing, 1993
“Macbeth,” Fishdrum, Fall 1998
"Abortion," New York Quarterly, Summer 1988
"Vampire," The Paris Review, Winter 1975
"The Supper," The Literary Review, Autumn 1968
"Soldier's Birthday," The Literary Review, Spring 1974
"One Night Stand," The Literary Review, Spring 1974
"Bottle Caps," The Literay Review, 1971
"Conceptions," The Literary Review, 1971
"Loving Cups," The Literay Review, 1971
"Heritage," The Literary Review, 1971
"Butterfly Lady," The Literary Review, 1976
"Suicide Note," The Literary Review, 1976
"Pay the Piper," The Nassau Lit, 1974
"No Fool Like a Young Fool," The Nassau Lit, 1974
"Dead Sea Trip," The Notice, 1971