San Francisco Poets Theater
San Francisco Poets Theater was founded in 1979 by Eileen Corder and Nick Robinson, a pair of young writers/actors/directors who had arrived in the Bay Area a few years earlier. Poets Theater brought together many of the Grand Piano authors as playwrights, actors, or production staff. The Theater drew talents beyond the immediate writing community as well — not only artists and musicians, but friends, friends of friends, and even audience recruits.
Poets Theater productions were fully realized, with sets, lighting, costumes, makeup, and props. A major production involved rehearsals over several months and would run six performances in three weekends. Performance venues ranged from Studio Eremos in Project Artaud to New College and the Julia Morgan Center.
The theater was active throught 1985, mounting nearly a dozen productions. Original manuscripts, correspondence, audio and video recordings, photos, programs, posters, and director's notes to the productions are housed in the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature at New York Public Library at 5th Avenue and 42nd Street.
Poets Theater production and publicity photos
- Third Man by Carla Harryman
- Mister Sister by Eileen Corder
- Particle Arms by Alan Bernheimer
- The Alps by Bob Perelman
- Other productions
Recordings
- Particle Arms, by Alan Bernheimer