Magic Time, A Memoir

Author, teacher, critic, Ed Wilson began his career in theatre as the Producer's Assistant of a Broadway play directed by John Gielgud and the film Lord of the Flies directed by Peter Brook. He directed a season at the Barter Theatre in Virginia and produced plays off-Broadway and co-produced the Broadway play Agatha Sue, I Love You directed by George Abbott. He also produced the film The Nashville Sound. Educated at Vanderbilt, the University of Edinburgh and Yale, he received the first Doctor of Fine Arts degree awarded by Yale. From 1972 to 1995 he was the theatre critic for The Wall Street Journal for 23 years and for 45 years he served on the faculty at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center for nearly half a century. During that time he became the pre-eminent author of college theatre textbooks in the U.S. His previous activities also included serving as President of the New York Drama Critics Circle, Chairman of the Theatre Development Fund and several Pulitzer Prize juries. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he conducted 90 half-hour television interviews with virtually every important theatre figure of the late 20th century from George Abbott to Jerry Zaks. Called Spotlight, the series appeared on CUNY-TV in New York and more than 200 PBS stations nationwide. It can be seen today on YouTube. In his noteworthy memoir Wilson gives us a penetrating, engaging, witty, incisive account of his singular adventures in and out of the theatre.