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Creator
Horovitz, Israel
Call number
*T-Mss 1976-001
Physical description
17.05 linear feet (41 boxes)
Preferred Citation

Israel Horovitz papers, Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library.

Repository
Billy Rose Theatre Division
Access to materials
Request an in-person research appointment.

Israel Horovitz (b. 1939) is a playwright, screenwriter, and director. Horovitz is the author of more than 70 plays, including The Indian Wants the Bronx and Line, as well as 4 films and 1 novel. The Israel Horovitz papers date from 1962 to 1989 and contain manuscript and revised versions of scripts, essays, and other writing, as well as clippings, reviews, programs, posters, and correspondence.

Biographical/historical information

Israel Horovitz (b. 1939) is an Obie and Drama Desk award-winning American playwright, screenwriter, and director. He was raised in Wakefield, Massachusetts, and studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London from 1961 to 1963. In addition to a residency at the Royal Shakespeare Company (1965) and two Rockefeller Foundation fellowships in playwriting (1968 and 1969), Horovitz was also the playwright in residence at the City College of the City University of New York from 1969 to 1974.

Horovitz is the author of more than 70 plays, 4 films, and 1 novel. The Comeback, Horovitz's first play, was produced in Boston when he was 17 years old. His work debuted in New York City at the Astor Place Theatre in 1968 with the production of The Indian Wants the Bronx and It's Called the Sugar Plum, two one-act plays. The Indian Wants the Bronx won an Obie Award for Best Play as well as a Drama Desk award, and featured rising stars Al Pacino and John Cazale. Over the next three years, his plays Rats, Line, Leader, The Honest-to-God Schnozzola, Chiaroscuro, and Acrobats were produced off-Broadway.

Following this success, Horovitz was commissioned by television networks such as CBS and WNET to develop television plays and pilots, resulting in Funny Books and Play for Trees. He also adapted novels, stories, and foreign plays for the stage and screen, including Norman Mailer's The Deer Park and Eugene Ionesco's Man with Bags. His first screenplay was an adaptation of James Simon Kunen's The Strawberry Statement; the film was awarded the Jury Prize at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival. Horovitz's semi-autobiographical screenplay Author! Author!, produced in 1982, drew from his experiences working as a Broadway playwright while raising young children. In addition to writing for the stage, screen, and television, Horovitz has also written poetry and long fiction, as well as essays for Look magazine and The New York Times. His novel, Capella, was published in 1973.

In the early 1970s, Horovitz began work on Alfred the Great, the first installment of The Wakefield Plays, set in Horovitz's Massachusetts hometown. Alfred the Great premiered in 1973, and the following year Horovitz was awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts to complete the trilogy, which included Our Father's Failing and Arthur Dies.

While writing has remained Horovitz's focus since the start of his career, he has also directed his own plays, including the 1968 premiere of Chiaroscuro and the 1989 off-Broadway production of The Widow's Blind Date. As of 2013, Horovitz's plays have been translated and produced in over 30 languages, and a 1974 revival of his play Line is the longest running play in Manhattan.

Scope and arrangement

The Israel Horovitz papers date from 1962 to 1989 (bulk: 1968 to 1975) and contain manuscript and revised versions of scripts, essays, and other writing, as well as clippings, reviews, programs, posters, and correspondence. The collection, which mostly documents the first two decades of Horovitz's career, is primarily composed of scripts for plays with handwritten changes and annotations; the date and revision number are generally noted on the title page. Correspondence, when present, is attached to covers or title pages, and most letters are from Horovitz or his agent. The evolution of Horowitz's early successful works of the late 1960s and 1970s are well represented in the collection, including Line, The Indian Wants the Bronx, It's Called the Sugar Plum, The Honest-to-God Schnozzola, and Acrobats. Horovitz's Wakefield Plays-which include Arthur the Great, Our Father's Failing, and Arthur Dies-constitute a large portion of the collection, with multiple revisions of scenes and whole acts as well as forewords, plot sketches, and notes for staging. In addition to Horovitz's well-known works, many scripts in the collection are unpublished.

The collection also contains drafts and revisions of screenplays (notably The Strawberry Statement and Author! Author!), television scripts, poems, and Horovitz's novel Capella. A small amount of clippings, programs, posters, and fliers related to productions of Horovitz's plays are included. Notes and outlines feature notes and draft plot sketches for unidentified television pilots and plays. Files for essays, articles, and lectures hold Horovitz's papers and correspondence with professors during his residency at the City University of New York, as well as draft essays and articles, some of which were later published in the New York Times. These essays provide Horovitz's perspective on the dramatic artform and the work of other writers, particularly Samuel Beckett.

Arrangement

The collection is arranged alphabetically by document type, with scripts further organized alphabetically by title. Scripts that form part of a larger series are arranged together under series title (such as Quannapowitt Quartet and The Wakefield Plays), and variant titles of the same work are also arranged together.

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Deposited by Israel Horovitz, 1974-1989.

Processing information

Compiled by Weatherly Stephan.

Using the collection

Location

Billy Rose Theatre Division
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
40 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023-7498
Third Floor