Allan Albert(1945-1994)
- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Allan Praigrod Albert was born in New York City and raised in Miami
Beach. He graduated from Amherst College, where he staged "The
Fantastics," with Ken Howard and Larry Dilg in leading roles, and "Murder in
the Cathedral," starring Stephen Collins, in the village's Grace Episcopal
Church. He also played the role of Marat in a staging of "Marat/Sade."
He attended the Yale School of Drama and founded the Proposition, an
improvisation troupe that played in Cambridge, Massachusetts and New
York for a decade, launching the careers of Jane Curtin, Josh Mostel, Suzanne Rand
and John Monteith (Monteith and Rand), and others. From 1977 to 1979,
he was artistic director of the Berkshire Theater Festival and the
Charles River Playhouse. He also did stints as director of comedy
development at the infant HBO (from 1979 to 1981) and WNET in New York.
At HBO, he was in charge of the "Young Comedians Shows," which featured
such performers as Pee-wee Herman and Arsenio Hall. In 1980, he started
Allan Albert Productions, which produces live shows for Hersheypark and
other theme parks. He ran AAP until his death. At the time of his
death, he and William Henry III, the drama critic for Time magazine,
were researching a film for PBS about Norman Rockwell. He produced
_Songs of Six Families, The (1994) (TV), a ninety-minute PBS
tribute to regional music in American, and _"American Masters" (1983) You're the Top: The Cole Porter Story (1990)_, and he directed the
Cole Porter 100th anniversary gala at Carnegie Hall. In 1989, he
founded the Oasis foundation to give attention to the work of young
photographers, and, shortly before his death, he set up The Allan
Albert Photographic Fund at Amherst College.