A previously unpublished volume of diaries recording Judith Malina’s extraordinary life and career in a moment of cultural revolution

Judith Malina’s diaries from the pivotal years of 1958 to 1968 are presented here in print for the first time. Meticulously edited and with an essential introduction by Kate Bredeson that offers a detailed discussion of Malina’s life and works during this period, the volume includes additional historical context and never-before-published photographs from Malina’s personal archives, as well as an illuminating foreword by Living Theatre archivist and longtime company member Tom Walker. This decade covers some of the most important years of Malina’s life and in the history of The Living Theatre, from career-defining productions of The Connection and The Brig to the company’s self-imposed European exile, when they created their signature works, including Paradise Now, Antigone, and Frankenstein.

The Diaries of Judith Malina is a four-volume set that publishes for the first time together the edited diaries of radical theater director, actor, and activist Judith Malina from 1947 to 1971, the most influential period of her remarkable and storied career. A committed anarchist and pacifist, Malina made theater as a way to engage in revolutionary action. Her diaries showcase her political and social observations, cultural commentary, self-reflection, and wit. This expertly prepared set invites us to recognize Malina for her accomplishments not only as an artist and an activist but as one of the great literary diarists.
 

JUDITH MALINA (1926–2015) was cofounder, with collaborator and husband Julian Beck, of The Living Theatre, a radical experimental company that rose to social and cultural prominence in New York City and internationally in the 1950s and ’60s and which she led until her death. She was a lifelong activist, artist, and diarist.

KATE BREDESON is a theater historian, translator, director, and dramaturg. She is a professor of theater at Reed College. She is the author of Occupying the Stage: The Theater of May ’68 and cotranslator with Thalia Wolff of The Inheritor, by Théâtre de l’Aquarium, both from Northwestern University Press. 
 

Foreword
Tom Walker
Introduction
Kate Bredeson
Chronology of Judith Malina and The Living Theatre, 1958–1968
Kate Bredeson
 
The Diaries of Judith Malina, 1958–1968
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
 
Acknowledgments
Kate Bredeson
Index
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