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    A Study Guide for Herb Gardner's "A Thousand Clowns"
    A Study Guide for Herb Gardner's "A Thousand Clowns"
    A Study Guide for Herb Gardner's "A Thousand Clowns"
    Ebook39 pages28 minutes

    A Study Guide for Herb Gardner's "A Thousand Clowns"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Herb Gardner's "A Thousand Clowns," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama For Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama For Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateAug 3, 2016
    ISBN9781535817387
    A Study Guide for Herb Gardner's "A Thousand Clowns"

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Herb Gardner's "A Thousand Clowns" - Gale

      1

      A Thousand Clowns

      Herb Gardner

      1962

      Introduction

      A Thousand Clowns was first presented at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre in New York City on April 5, 1962, with Jason Robards in the role of Murray Burns. Herb Gardner's first full-length play, it was nominated for the Tony Award for best play and was so successful commercially that Gardner, named the most promising playwright of 1961–62, was able to turn to playwriting full time. A few years later, Gardner wrote the prize-winning screenplay for a film adaptation of A Thousand Clowns, also starring Robards.

      The play tells the story of Murray Burns, a cheerful eccentric raising his nephew, a twelve-year-old genius, in New York City. Murray believes in living life fully, even if that means going to the movies instead of looking for a job. When social workers from the Bureau of Child Welfare come to investigate, he must decide whether to accept some level of conformity in order to show himself a fit guardian. The play is episodic and funny, as Murray meets all challenges to his lifestyle with irreverent humor. The text is available in Herb Gardner: The Collected Plays, published in paperback in 2001 by Applause Books.

      Author Biography

      Herbert Gardner was born in Brooklyn, New York, on December 28, 1934. His grandfather owned a neighborhood bar, the Silver Gate, in Manhattan's Lower East Side. Gardner attended the High School of Performing Arts in New York City and then the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh and Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where he studied sculpture and drama. Gardner's Jewish heritage and his experiences listening to conversations in his father's bar provided background for several of his plays and characters.

      A man of many interests and abilities, Gardner wanted to be a sculptor but did not think he would be able to make a living at it. In the 1950s, he drew a comic strip called The Nebbishes for the Chicago Tribune. The strip became popular and was widely syndicated. The income from the strip and related merchandise made it possible for Gardner to act on his dissatisfaction, like Murray Burns, and end his career. Turning his attention to writing longer works, in 1958 he published his first and only novel, A Piece of the Action. This

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