Richard Skipper Celebrates Judy Garland's 100th Birthday with Albert Poland
When Albert Poland was a teenager, he wrote to Judy Garland requesting that he create The Judy Garland fan club and she accepted. Tune in to hear this amazing story! Legendary Producer and General Manager Albert Poland's work has spanned the dawn of Off Broadway to the Broadway blockbusters of the 1980s and 1990s and beyond. He worked with them all, from an unknown Sam Shepard and David Mamet to Edward Albee and Arthur Miller. He was also the founder of the Judy Garland Fan Club as a young teen. STAGES-a theater memoir is more than an insider's view of his many major productions, although there is plenty of that, from The Fantasticks and Little Shop of Horrors to Long Day's Journey into Night and from The Grapes of Wrath to The Boy from Oz. Witty, colorful, unconventional, and wickedly insightful, Poland has had a career that comprises a fascinating portrait of the social and cultural landscape of New York, from the '60s to the present, seen through the lens of a life in the theater (and yes, he managed the play with that title). You will get intimate and personal views of such stars as Judy Garland, Bette Davis, Hugh Jackman, Vanessa Redgrave, Truman Capote, and Liza Minnelli, as well as such theatrical titans as Cameron Mackintosh, Bernard B. Jacobs, Gerald Schoenfeld, and Ellen Stewart. Poland is the co-author/editor of The Off Off Broadway Book, and is a principal player in Michael Riedel's best-seller Razzle Dazzle: The Battle for Broadway. In June of 2019, The Off Broadway Alliance presented Albert Poland with a Legend of Off Broadway Award.