To Repair the World: Zelda Fichandler and the Transformation of American Theater by Mary B. Robinson (with a foreword by Jane Alexander) is a biography in the form of an oral history about a woman whose founding of Arena Stage in Washington, DC in 1950 shifted live professional theater away from Broadway and inspired the creation of non-profit theaters around the country.

Dianne Wiest, James Earl Jones, Stacy Keach, and Jane Alexander, among many others, share their memories of this intrepid pioneering woman during Arena Stage’s early years.

As Head of New York University’s Graduate Acting Program for 25 years, Zelda Fichandler also trained a generation of gifted actors. Marcia Gay Harden, Rainn Wilson, Mahershala Ali, and other developing young actors who became “citizen-artists” under her guidance talk about the ways in which she transformed their lives.

Theater practitioners who lived during Zelda Fichandler’s time will find this book a fascinating and entertaining read — as will all theater lovers, especially those in Washington, DC. And through this vivid and compelling oral history, aspiring artists and theater students will come to grasp how the theatrical past can shed essential light on the theater of today and tomorrow.