Robert Brustein

Robert Sanford Brustein (April 21, 1927 – October 29, 2023) was an American theatrical critic, producer, playwright, writer, and educator. He founded the Yale Repertory Theatre while serving as dean of the Yale School of Drama in New Haven, Connecticut, as well as the American Repertory Theater and Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was a creative consultant until his death, and was the theatre critic for The New Republic. He commented on politics for the HuffPost.

Brustein was a senior research fellow at Harvard University and a distinguished scholar in residence at Suffolk University in Boston. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1999, and in 2002, was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. In 2003, he served as a senior fellow with the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University, and in 2004/2005, was a senior fellow at the National Endowment for the Arts Arts Journalism Institute in Theatre and Musical Theatre at the University of Southern California. In 2010, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama.

Robert Sanford Brustein was born in Brooklyn, New York, on April 21, 1927, to Blanche Haft Brustein and Max Brustein. He grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, residing in the same apartment building as Sergei Rachmaninoff. In elementary and high school, his dream was "to be Artie Shaw's successor as a swing band leader." He was educated at The High School of Music & Art, and Amherst College, where he received a BA in 1948 (briefly studying in the medieval history graduate program), the Yale School of Drama for a year studying dramatic literature and criticism, and Columbia University, where he received an MA in 1950, and a PhD in 1957, in dramatic literature and cultural criticism, supervised by Lionel Trilling. His dissertation was on the playwright John Marston. During a break from university, he served in the Merchant Marine on tankers and Victory ships, and later at Kings Point Academy on Long Island. He also held a Fulbright Fellowship to study in the United Kingdom from 1953 to 1955, where he directed plays at the University of Nottingham. After teaching at Cornell University, Vassar College, and Columbia, where he became a full professor of dramatic literature in the English department, he became Dean of the Yale School of Drama in 1966, and served in that position until 1979. It was during this period, in 1966, that he founded the Yale Repertory Theatre.

In 1979, Brustein left Yale for Harvard University, where he founded the American Repertory Theater (ART) and became a professor of English. At Harvard, he founded the Institute for Advanced Theater Training. He retired from the artistic directorship of ART in 2002, and then served on the faculty of the institute. He was a distinguished scholar in residence from 2007, at Suffolk University, where he taught courses in Shakespeare Analysis. As the artistic director of Yale Rep from 1966 to 1979, and of ART from 1980 to 2002, Brustein supervised over 200 productions, acting in eight and directing twelve.

Brustein was married to actress Norma Ofstrock until her death in 1979. (Brustein was the stepfather to Norma Ofstrock's son from a previous marriage, Phil Cates). That marriage resulted in son Daniel Brustein. In 1996, he married activist and academic Doreen Beinart; through this marriage, he became the stepfather of journalist Peter Beinart and of Jean Stern.

Brustein died at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 29, 2023, at the age of 96.

Brustein was the theatre critic for The New Republic from 1959 to "about 2000", and later contributed to The Huffington Post. He authored sixteen books on theatre and society:

Brustein was the writer and narrator of a WNET television series in 1966 called The Opposition Theatre. He also commented on contemporary social and political issues for the Huffington Post.