Interviewed by Michael Birtwistle
1994
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M. Abbott Van Nostrand, class of 1934, was the president of Samuel French, the world's oldest and largest play publisher, and licensing agency. From 1952 until 1990 as president of French, Walter H. Baker Co., and Samuel French, Van Nostrand published every prominent 20th-century playwright, including 26th Pulitzer Prize winners and 14 Nobel Prize winners. The Samuel French Play Collection in Special Collections numbers over 30,000 plays and his successors continue to add to the collection.
Michael Birtwistle, Stanley King Professor of Dramatic Arts, came to Amherst in 1984 as a tenured professor to take charge of building a new Department of Theater and Dance at Amherst. He is a teacher, director, and designer who has boundless enthusiasm, a great sense of the stage, and a deeply intellectual approach to the analysis of scripts.
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