Full endorsements
Zelda Fichandler was inspirational in everything she did and said. She changed the face of regional theaters, and she changed many lives. Mine was one of them. This book is an important window into one of the most visionary people in theater history. I salute Mary B. Robinson for giving us Zelda through this splendid oral history.
—Jane Alexander,
Tony and Emmy Award-winning actor
and former Chair of National Endowment
for the Arts
• • •
To Repair the World is a phenomenal work centering on the life and work (one and the same) of Zelda Fichandler. It is not a hagiography: it covers the waterfront of this remarkable and inspirational and infuriating and unique genius teacher and artistic leader. It’s a magnificent book, and an outstanding achievement.
—Tazewell Thompson,
director, playwright, and librettist
• • •
Zelda Fichandler is arguably the central figure of the American regional theater movement, and her unique mind and personality spring to life through this riveting oral history, filled with personal recollections and surprising anecdotes. Zelda’s path-breaking career and tenacious vision continue to inspire. To Repair the World will be essential reading for all theater lovers.
—Howard Shalwitz,
Artistic Director emeritus,
Wolly Mammoth Theatre Company
• • •
To Repair the World deftly weaves together interviews with Zelda Fichandler’s own writing; the result is a fascinating and clear-eyed look at an artist who was as inspirational as she was complicated. The book provides an invigorating, nuanced, and timely look at the birth of a movement that changed the way Americans think about theater. It is perfectly timed––it will enter a complex conversation just when we most need to put our current crisis in perspective and learn from the best of our forebears.
—Carey Perloff,
former Artistic Director,
American Conservatory Theater
• • •
While texts of her speeches, her essays, and the Arena Stage itself all live as testimonials to the seminal force that was Zelda Fichandler, To Repair the World humanizes her in surprising, complicated, unexpected, resonant, deeply moving ways. It offers insight not only into how to lead a theater but how to lead a life—a life of at times sacrifice, at times rewards, at all times purpose—and brings Zelda back to those of us who were lucky enough to know her and will always miss her.
—Ben Cameron,
former Executive Director,
Theatre Communications Group
• • •
I could not put this book down. To Repair the World is a glorious piece of work––a tribute to the woman who articulated, created, and demanded the best from all of us who dedicated our lives to the American theater. This is an important book, and a gift to the field.
—Emily Mann,
former Artistic Director, McCarter Theatre
• • •
When I’d dried my tears and picked myself up off the floor, I had a chance to consider why Mary Robinson’s oral history biography of theater pioneer Zelda Fichandler left me verklempt. It’s hard to imagine a more prismatic, dimensional portrait. Complete, intimate, accessible, and juicy, it’s the story of one theater and a whole theater movement, one unstoppable woman and generations of artists she launched, disappointed, and inspired. More than anything, To Repair the World feels like a work of theater itself—built before our eyes, revealing its truths in real time. Part visionary epic, part Mickey and Judy put on a play, both field of dreams and catalogue of failed attempts, the book is as elegant as Zelda herself — and as real.
—Todd London,
author/editor, The Long Revolution;
An Ideal Theater
• • •
To Repair the World is a monument — to the non-profit theater movement, to the people who constructed it, filled it, took it forward, and transformed the very nature of the American theater. It’s an oral history that combines voices with a narrative flow, based on meticulous research and Mary Robinson’s own insights into the American regional theater––while also delineating the many corners of Zelda Fichandler’s complex personality. It’s truly brilliant, and nothing short of miraculous. I couldn’t put it down.
––Mark Lamos,
former artistic director, Hartford Stage and Westport Playhouse
• • •
Mary Robinson’s first book Directing Plays, Directing People offered us a front row seat in a backstage world brimming with frustrations and fears as well as the passions and joys of creation. Now, in To Repair the World, Robinson guides us inside the mind and heart of the incomparable American theater artist and pioneer Zelda Fichandler. Through candid, revelatory interviews and Fichandler’s own words, Robinson shows how theater gets made, how theater art advances—and the human cost of that work. Theater is ephemeral, but in this oral history, Robinson succeeds in capturing the power, the humor, and the fleeting magic of the art Zelda Fichandler created and inspired.
—Helen Sheehy,
author of biographies of Margo Jones,
Eva Le Gallienne, and Eleonora Duse
• • •
Zelda Fichandler was a dynamic personality: vibrant, visionary, conflicted, confounding, passionate, and pioneering. Someone like her passes this way but once; however, Mary Robinson’s engaging oral history of Zelda’s life and career, To Repair the World, allows us to revel once again in the electric energy that was Zelda Fichandler. The arc of Zelda’s artistry is rendered in spectacular and specific detail from the perspective of those whom she taught and tangled with, influenced and inspired. This volume is not only an absorbing biography, it’s a fascinating overview of the challenges in sustaining an artistic mission while navigating the turbulent waters of American culture.
—Laurence Maslon,
theater historian, arts professor, NYU
• • •
I have read this astonishing book cover-to-cover, sometimes re-reading, and it is a triumph. The myriad interviews generate thrilling insights, and their deft assemblage makes for a compelling read — more like a great novel than a straight-on biography would have been. Today’s institutional theater is in “free fall” (Washington Post). This is an all-too timely and necessary book about our brilliant non-profit prophet, the mother of us all, Zelda Fichandler.
––David Chambers,
Professor, Yale University, former Producer Arena Stage