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First Short Stories
Published - Children's Magazine 'Wee Wisdom' (published in Kansas City,
MO, USA.) |
1940 |
'A Boy and
His Queen' is set in time of Elizabeth 1st about a wandering minstrel
boy who meets the 'Good Queen Bess' when she hears him singing into
the streets, of London. |
1941 |
The Chinese
Proverb' is a contemporary story about a Chinese-Canadian boy who survives
the prejudice and bigotry of his classmates through his skill for a
love of painting. |
1942 |
'Dawning',
a poem about the futility of war. Herbert's first poem published in
'York Memo', the annual school magazine of York Memorial Collegiate
in west-end of Toronto. |
1944-45 |
Studied
painting at Ontario College of Art. |
1945-47 |
Worked
in art department of Eaton's advertising department (sixth floor). |
1947 |
Arrested
by police and charged with 'gross indecency': sentenced to six months
at Guelph Reformatory (Ontario). |
1948 to 1952 |
Travelled
Canada, working and living in northern Manitoba, northern Quebec and
Montreal, Excursions to the USA, as well living a while in Chicago. |
1953 |
Travelled
across Canada as a professional female impersonator together with Alan
Maloney (known as 'Brandy') in a show called 'Paris After Midnight',
a kind of burlesque, part of Model Shows a circus-size carnival company. |
1955 |
Studied in
Toronto. Settled down for three years in Dora Mavor Moore's theatre
school 'New Play Society' to study acting, directing, lighting, costuming,
stage management and set designing. Worked part-time for Dora as actor,
set designer, stage manager and prop person. Did technical work for
production of N.P.S.'s annual stage revue, 'Spring Thaw'. |
1958 |
Worked with
dancer Bianca Rogge's dance company at Village Playhouse and in First
Canadian Modern Dance Festival for Bianca Rogge and Judy Jarvis. |
1959 |
Herbert read
a collection of his poems, on the theme of homosexuality, at the Bohemian
Embassy Coffee House, which was the first such reading in Toronto. |
1961 |
Directed
'Adventure Theatre Company' in a production of Enid Bagnold's 'The Chalk
Garden' at Centre Stage (where the Bloor Street Bay store now sits. |
1962 |
Directed
Adventure Theatre in a production of James M. Barrie's 'Dear Brutus'
at St. Luke's Auditorium. |
1962 |
Herbert produced
two of his early one-act plays 'Private Club' and 'A Household God'
at Bohemian Embassy Coffee House with his company the New Venture Players. |
1963 |
Invited to
perform the same two original plays at the 'Newmarket One-Act Play Festival',
in Newmarket, Ontario. |
1964 |
Adapted and
produced A. Dumas' play, 'The Lady of the Camellias' at Victoria Auditorium,
Queen and Victoria Sts., Toronto, with the New Venture Players. |
1965 |
Produced
and directed Jean Genet's 'The Maids' at John Herbert's Garret Theatre,
on the floor above Rugantino's Restaurant on Yonge Street, near Charles
St. This was the first presentation of a Genet Play in Toronto; Critic
Nathan Cohen attended. |
1965 |
Douglas Campbell,
co-directed with John Hirsch at Stratford that year, chose John Herbert's
new play 'Fortune and Men's Eyes' to be acted by Stratford's Young Company
in workshop, with Bruno Gerussi directing. In the cast were Richard
Monette and Ken James, among others. |
1967 |
Nathan Cohen,
of the Toronto Star, sends 'Fortune and Men's Eyes' to David Rothenberg,
young producer of 'Viet Rock' Off-Broadway in New York. David opens
"Fortune and Men's Eyes' at Actor's Play house, where it runs for
a year. |
1971 |
John Herbert
closes the Garret with a new play by Ivan Burgess, a young musician
- writer from Western Canada, a black Canadian. Ken Gass, also from
Western Canada, directed 'Horseshoe House'. It was his first directing
work in Toronto. The production and play received excellent reviews
and had a second run later at the Library Theatre. Gass went on to found
'The Factory Theatre' on Dupont St. where David Freeman's play 'Creeps'
was born. |
1971 |
John Herbert
donated everything from the Garret Theatre to Ken Gass' new theatre
The Factory, lights, costumes, chairs, platforms, etc., and Herbert
leaves for Paris, France, where his play 'Fortune and Men's Eyes' opens
on December 22nd, 1971, at the Theatre Athenee (Moliere's Last theatre)
to rave reviews and a nine-months run in the 'city of light'. French
translation was by Alain Brunet, who simply called the play 'Hommes'
(Men) for the Paris performance. |
1971 |
The M.G.M.
released film of 'Fortune and Men's Eyes' opened in the USA and Canada
and at the 'Venice Film Festival' in Italy. The Italian critics praised
the film highly. Direction was by Harvey Hart (a Canadian in Hollywood)
with film script by John Herbert, author of the original stage play.
(The film script was worked on through 1968 and 1969 until approved
by M.G.M. executives, who by contract with John Herbert could not employ
a different writer - a difficult kind of contract to obtain, since Hollywood
likes to alter everything.) The movie still shows on television every
year around the world and is available for rental at most video rental
outlets. |
1971-72 |
John Herbert
remains in Paris and London for a year, studying French and British
theatre with renewed curiosity and enthusiasm.
1972-73 - John Herbert returns to Canada with a completed new play script,
'Born of Medusa's Blood', which open in an equity production at 'Theatre-in-Camera',
with an all-black actors cast, led by Jazz-singer and actress Jodie
Drake. |
1973 |
'Born of
Medusa's Blood' receives mixed review in Toronto. The Toronto Star's
David McCaughna, a stringer for the paper, gives the production a good
review, but a week later, Urjo Kareda, the Star's new drama critic (after
Nathan Cohen's death) returns from New York coverage of the American
theatre scene to deny McCaughna's approval of 'Medusa' with what is
probably the most vicious review on record by a Canadian drama critic
of a Canadian artist's work. As well as attacking Herbert's writing,
Kareda attacks Jodie Drake's physical appearance in an excess of verbal
brutality. All other reviewers in newspapers and magazines highly praised
Jodie Drake's performance of the character 'Clio', no matter what they
thought or said of Herbert's writing. Since physical appearance had
been made fair game by Kareda, when Herbert encountered Karada at a
different theatre opening, Herbert said to Karada in full earshot of
theatregoers, "The Star in Cohen's day, had a large critic. Now,
it has only a fat one." |
1974 |
A production
of John Herbert's four one-act plays "Pearl Divers', 'Beer Room',
'Close Friends' and 'Dinosaurs' is staged at the Forest Hill Library
Theatre on Eglinton Ave. West under the umbrella title 'Some Angry Summer
Songs' (later published by Talonbooks of Canada and USA). The 'Maverick
Theatre' is born in this first production of those plays. |
1974 |
John Herbert's
three-act play 'Omphale and the Hero' is published in Canadian Theatre
Review, but had only a workshop production in Toronto. This play was
later translated into German by Hildegard Lanman and Edith Platzer of
Vienna and London, entitle 'Der Engel Unter Das Volfen'. |
1975 |
Phoenix Theatre
of Toronto, under the direction of Graham Harley produces a full Canadian
performance of 'Fortune and Men's Eyes', the first such in Toronto,
eight years after the play had been seen in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles,
London (England), Sweden, Norway and Tel Aviv, Israel. |
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* Note * The 1967
production of 'Fortune and Men's Eyes' in Toronto was the New York cast
on tour of Canada. |
1975 |
John Herbert
is given the Chalmers
Award (listed as awarded in 1976 on the Chalmers site) together
with five thousand dollars as result of the Phoenix Theatre production
of his prison play. |
1976 |
John Herbert
produces, directs and performs the title role in Tennessee Williams'
satirical play 'The Gnadiges Fraulein', a wicked comedy on the subject
of artistic values in American theatre, Hollywood and in the offices
of drama critics and writers' agents. Gina Mallet, an English-born stringer
for Time Magazine, arrives in Toronto to take the post of drama critic
at the Toronto Star, and gives 'The Gnadiges Fraulein', Tennessee Williams,
John Herbert and the Phoenix Theatre absolute shit for doing this strange,
mad play. Her headline read, "Good Heavens, John Herbert!"
She was especially angry about the Journalist, Polly, a character in
the play, once a society reporter, who now writes only obituaries of
famous people. Mallet wrote of Graham Harley's very comic performance,
"Maggie Smith should sue." |
1977 |
'The Wonderful
Whores', a topical revue written and performed by John Herbert and his
Maverick Theatre Company at the Poor Alex Theatre, which played for
four weeks. |
1978 |
'The Great
Schmaltz', a takeoff, on the 1939 movie 'The Great Waltz' with a Canadian
setting and a story about the plight of a young Canadian musician who
wants to become the 'Schmaltz King' of American music. |
1979 |
'The Token
Star', a three-act comedy by John Herbert, set in an Ontario town called
'Fallstaff', where a British director has been hired to show Canadians
how to play 'Shakespeare'. To get grants, he must employ one internationally
known Canadian performer as he hires British stars to form his company.
He chooses the Quebec actress, 'Monique Dominique', the rage of Paris,
whom he believes speaks only French. When she arrives at the 'Falstaff
Festival', she gives the British director the shock of his life and
she refuses to play supporting parts.
1980 - 'Hollywood, Here?' a satirical revue posing the question "What
if Canada had become the movie capital of the world, instead of California?"
(After all, the first theatre where audiences paid to see movies [made
in Canada] in North America was located in Montreal, Quebec, early in
the Twentieth Century. Locally, filmmakers could not persuade Canadian
businessmen to risk investment in this new art form.) So, Mary Pickford
and Marie Dressler went south to the USA, together with some filmmakers
who did very well in Hollywood. In 'Hollywood, Here?' there was lots
of mad drag, a tall blonde girl with long legs doing wild John Wayne,
a short saucy man doing both a hilarious Mae West and a neurotic Bette
Davis, who smoked six cigarettes at the same time. The Shirley Temple
child star was a black actor, as cute as a button, in blonde curls.
The production was great fun. |
1982 |
'The Power
of Paper Dolls', a three act comedy about three older women who travel
Europe, meeting there, and learning about their real lives while having
this last crazy fling. Written by Herbert, work shopped by the Maverick
Company, performed by the Autumn Leaf Company in tandem with The Smile
Company at the Alumnae Theatre, with direction by Thom Sokoloski. |
1983 |
'Magda',
a play in two-acts by John Herbert, directed by Thom Sololoski, and
performed at the Adelaide Court Theatre in a production by the Autumn
Leaf Company. The play ran for five weeks to good houses, after favorable
reviews in all but the Globe and Mail. Ray Gonlogue hated the play,
or John Herbert, or both. The play was about and based on the life of
an aging woman, a survivor, of the concentration camp, who is on trial
in Berlin of today for taking an act of revenge on the Nazi who killed
her family. |
1984 |
The Butterfly
and the Nightingale', was written by John Herbert for the children at
St. Paul's Community Centre (Roberts St. and Bloor) who crept into rehearsals
of Maverick Theatre productions trying to join in the action. Amazingly,
the parents, attending with the kids, laughed harder than the children,
who were more inclined to believe everything that was happening on stage.
The play is about a madly selfish rich family, royal in fact, whose
members manage to foul up one another's lives. The heroine is the gardener's
daughter, in love with flowers, birds, bees and butterflies, and the
hero is a shepherd who wants to save the woods and the fields for the
animals which have always made their home in that setting. The greed
and exploitation of nature by the rich family almost win, but a personal
sacrifice by the gardener-father saves his daughter and the shepherd. |
1985 |
'The Biographers',
a three-act play. Developed in workshop by Maverick Theatre at St. Paul's
Community Centre, but never given a public performance. The play is
John Herbert's comment on the waywardness and unpredictability of a
life in the theatre.
1986 - The Maverick Theatre Company moves into 519 Community Centre,
at 519 Church Street and worked there till 1996. |
1987 |
Maverick
revives the play for children 'The Butterfly and the Nightingale' by
John Herbert, and performs it for the community centre's 'Summer Camp
in the City' program, where children from various center-city recreation
centers come together in the 519 auditorium. |
1988 |
Maverick
Theatre, under the shared directorship of Suzanne Charlton and John
Herbert, presents three Tennessee Williams one-act plays under the umbrella
titles 'The World of Tennessee Williams', with a benefit performance
for 'Gay Pride Day', funding of the annual event. |
1989 |
'The Hungry,
The Homeless and The Hopeful' - umbrella title for a program of three
one-act plays from the Nineteen-thirties in America plays, which could
have been written about Toronto of today. One of the plays, 'Hope is
the thing with Feathers', examines the plight of a group of homeless
people, living in a public park and desperately hunting for food. Herbert
and Charlton directed. The other two one-act plays were 'The old Jew'
and 'The peddler's Cart'. |
1990 |
John Herbert's
Maverick Theatre presents a production of 'Driving Miss Daisy', directed
by Suzanne Charlton and performed at 519 Community Centre. |
1991-93 |
Maverick
Theatre works on John Herbert's new play script 'Broken Antiques Dolls',
a play in two-acts, set in a nursing home, featuring four aged residents
of different backgrounds in life, who try to form a family under the
critical interference of doctor and nurse. |
1994 |
'Broken Antique
Dolls' performed to public at 519 Community Centre, as directed by Suzanne
Charlton. This benefit performance was given to help with the funding
at Casey House, the hospice for patients with AIDS. (One character in
the play fights the condition of AIDS himself.) |
1994-95 |
'Merchants
of Bay Street'. Maverick Theatre works on John Herbert's adaptation
of 'The Merchant of Venice' by William Shakespeare, which John Herbert
has set in Toronto of a hundred years ago (1894) to examine earlier
days of racial and religious prejudice in Canada, 19th century roots
of many of today's problems in our society. October 27th, 1995, Maverick
Theatre performed 'Merchants of Bay Street' in benefit for the Canadian
Lesbian and Gay Archives in a donated space by Club Colby's, 9 St. Joseph
Street, Toronto, called Stage III for the performance. |
Library & Archives |
1969 |
The United
States Library of Congress gave a special place to John Herbert's play
'Fortune and Men's Eyes' as: "The only American theatre play to
have given birth to an actual social reform movement, in the form of
'The Fortune Society', a prison reform organization in America." |
1981 |
The library
at the University of Waterloo sought and bought John Herbert's papers,
everything written by the author during his lifetime, including earliest
stories from childhood. The John Herbert Archives reside in the University
of Waterloo's Rare Book Room in Waterloo, Ontario and will be brought
up to date by the end of 2001 when John Herbert's estate will turn over
his work since 1990 to curator, Susan Bellingham, as Herbert had promised. |
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