Josephine R. Abady (b. August 21, 1949, Richmond, Virginia - d. May 25, 2002, New York City) was an American artistic, stage and film director/producer.

Contents 1 Education 2 Theatrical career 3 Film work 4 Last years 5 Affiliations 6 Survivors 7 External links 8 References

[edit] Education

Ms. Abady graduated from Syracuse University and earned her MFA from Florida State University. For several years, before beginning her professional career at the Berkshire Theater Festival, where she specialized in revivals of American plays, she taught theater at Bennington College and was head of the theater program at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts.

[edit] Theatrical career

She was artistic director of the Berkshire Theater Festival (in Stockbridge, Massachusetts), the Cleveland Playhouse and New York City's Circle in the Square. When she went to the Cleveland Playhouse, she opened the season with a revival of Born Yesterday, starring Ed Asner and Madeline Kahn, a production that moved to Broadway. In 1991, while she was at the Cleveland Playhouse, she staged a Russian-language version of A Streetcar Named Desire in Volgograd and brought the play to Cleveland, where local audiences listened to the English translation over headphones. She would go on to present plays written by black and female authors. After six years she left the Cleveland Playhouse, apparently due to artistic differences.

In 1996, New York's Circle in the Square theater filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 and Ms. Abady resigned shortly thereafter.^[1]

[edit] Film work

In 1994, with a grant from the American Film Institute, she made a short film, To Catch a Tiger, inspired by her own mother's work as a civil rights activist in the American South. The screenplay was written by Ms. Abady's husband, Michael Krawitz, and starred her sister, actress Caroline Aaron, as the character based on Josephine and Caroline's own mother, Nina Friedman Abady. Josephine Abady coproduced a film version of A Raisin in the Sun, starring Esther Rolle and Danny Glover.^[2]

[edit] Last years

Despite her advanced breast cancer, she was active during the last years of her life. She ran a lunchtime series of play readings at the National Arts Club in New York, and also directed plays in Texas and Florida. She returned to her native Richmond to stage Margaret Edson play, Wit, about a woman who is dying from cancer. When interviewed by a local reporter, she said she had not seen the play before she directed it. "I live 'Wit' ... I don't need to see it."^[3]

[edit] Affiliations

• Member, League of Professional Theatre Women ^[4]

[edit] Survivors

She was survived by her husband, sister and a brother, Samuel Abady.

[edit] External links

• IBDb database
• Tribute

[edit] References

1. ^ New York Times obituary
2. ^ Playbill.com obit
3. ^ [1] New York Times obituary
4. ^ Tribute