Walt Witcover Memorial, March 22nd, 2014, Part 2 of 5
Channel: dougffox
Date: 20/04/2014

This is Part-2 of 5 parts of the Memorial for Acting Teach and Director, Walt Witcover.  Celebrating the Life of Walt Witcover, August 24th, 1924 to November 15th, 2013.  In Part-2, emcee, Andrew Alburger, introduces Lenore Stefanik, who talks of Walt's teaching style and shares letters from friends and pays tribute in song.  Long time friend, Jerry Stiller speaks about how pivotal Walt was to help Jerry and Ann work together as a comedy team.


WALT WITCOVER had a fifty-year career as a performer, stage director and acting coach. During the thirty years he directed in summer stock, Off-Broadway and regional theatres, three of his productions won "Obie" Awards, and his unique "mod" staging of Verdi's La Traviata won the Actors Studio "Total Theatre" Award. As co- founder and Artistic Director of Masterworks Laboratory Theatre, Inc. (MLT), he conceived and developed thirty fresh interpretations of classic drama and opera, as well as explorations into new performing approaches to poetry, song cycles and short stories. 


Mr. Witcover taught acting and directing at the HB Studio for twenty-five years, was Professor of Theatre Arts at The State University of New York Theatre Arts program at Purchase, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and now offers private training and coaching at the Witcover Acting Studio in mid-Manhattan. Actors he has taught or directed include F. Murray Abraham, Jane Alexander, Barbara Barrie, Ernest Borgnine, Ruth Chatterton, Dominic Chianese, Robert Clohessy, James Coburn, Alex Cord, Claude Dauphin, Sandy Dennis, Farley Granger, Ed Herlihy, Salome Jens, Tim Jerome, Terry Kiser, Shirley Knight, Liz Larsen, John Leguizamo, Anne Meara, Tony Musante, George Peppard, Charles Nelson Reilly, Gorge Segal, Sylvia Sidney, Jerry Stiller and Arthur Treacher. His account of his teaching process, Living on Stage - Acting from the Inside Out: A Practical Process, was recently published by Back Stage Books. 


His acting career includes performing both on and off Broadway, in summer stock and repertory, in the early days of live TV, and in numerous projects at the HB Studio, the Actors Studio and MLT. Notable artists he has performed with include Herbert Berghof, Helen Hayes, James Earl Jones, Jack Klugman, Mary Martin, Basil Rathbone, Kim Stanley and Frances Sternhagen.



Recorded with a Canon VIXA HF-R42 Camcorder and a Nikon CoolPix S8200 at HD 1080P.
Edited with BLENDER 2.65
Audio Processed with Audacity 2.0.5.0
Titles created and Photos edited with GIMP 2.8.3