CHAIM POTOK (1929-2002) is the author of nine novels, including The Chosen, My Name is Asher Lev, Davita’s Harp, and I Am the Clay. He also wrote Young Adult fiction (Zebra and Other Stories); children’s books (The Tree of Here and The Sky of Now); a collection of novellas (Old Men at Midnight); biographies of Isaac Stern and Vladimir Slepak; Wanderings: Chaim Potok’s History of the Jews; and numerous essays and short stories. An ordained rabbi, he served as a U.S. Army chaplain in Korea. The Collected Plays of Chaim Potok is the first volume of his plays to be published.
RENA POTOK is a writer, editor, and educator. Her articles, reviews, and poems have appeared in many publications, among them Religion and Literature; The Bryn Mawr Review of Comparative Literature; Borders, Exiles, Diasporas; and Contemporary Women Poets. She was Senior Acquisitions Editor at the Jewish Publication Society, and is the editor of Hills of Spices: Poetry from the Bible, and the 50th anniversary critical edition of The Chosen by Chaim Potok. She was a 2017 recipient of a Fiction Fellowship at the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. She teaches literature and writing at Villanova University.
DAVID BASSUK is Professor of Theater Arts at Purchase College. He was Artistic Director of Novel Stages Theater Company and Arcadia Shakespeare Festival in Philadelphia, and co-Artistic Director of Ark Theater Company in Los Angeles. He is a director of many productions, among them Cat’s Cradle a musical by Kurt Vonnegut, Chaim Potok’s The Chosen Off-Broadway, and “American Camera” at Lincoln Center.
Dr. Carol Rocamora is a New York-based author and educator with a rich and extensive background in the theatre. She is a respected translator, playwright, biographer, and critic.
Carol’s play I take your hand in mine… premiered in London in 2001 at London’s Almeida Theatre with Paul Scofield and Irene Worth in the original cast, directed by Jonathan Kent. The play was next seen in Paris in 2003 at the Theatre des Bouffes du Nord directed, by Peter Brook, starring his wife Natasha Parry and Michel Picoli. (It toured for two years before appearing in London’s Barbican Centre in 2005). Based on the correspondence between Anton Chekhov and Olga Knipper, I take your hand in mine…, has been translated and shown in cities around the world, from Mexico City to Shanghai.
Carol has written two biographies: Anton Chekhov: A Life in Four Acts (published by Smith & Kraus in 2013) and Acts of Courage: Václav Havel’s Life in the Theatre (published by Smith & Kraus Global in 2005).
She has taught dramatic literature in the Department of Dramatic Writing at the New York University’s Tisch School of Arts since 1993 and received the David Payne Carter Award for Teaching Excellence. In addition to her teaching at NYU, Carol serves on the faculty of the Juilliard School. She has taught theatre history at Columbia University, and has also lectured on Chekhov at The Yale School of Drama and Oxford University.
Carol has written about theatre for The Nation, The New York Times, The Guardian, and American Theatre magazine.
She is also the translator of the complete dramatic works of Anton Chekhov, published in several volumes: Chekhov: Four Plays, Chekhov: The Early Plays, and Chekhov: The Vaudevilles. She has also adapted twenty Chekhov short stories for the stage, published in two volumes called Rubles (all published by Smitth & Kraus).
Before coming to New York, Carol was founder and artistic director of the Philadelphia Festival Theatre for New Plays at the Annenberg Center.
AARON POSNER is a theater director, teacher, and playwright. His adaptations of Chaim Potok’s The Chosen and My Name Is Asher Lev have had more than 100 productions, both in the United States and abroad. His other plays and adaptations include Stupid Fucking Bird, Life Sucks, No Sisters, District Merchants, JQA, and Sometimes A Great Notion. He has directed at major regional theater companies throughout the United States.
