User:Chris.halkett/Ed Berman

Professor Edward David (ED) Berman MBE (born 8th March, 1941 in Lewiston, Maine) is an American-born British playwright, director, producer, actor, activist, social entrepreneur and Founder and CEO of the Inter-Action group of charities, awarded an MBE in 1979.

Early Life and Education
ED Berman was born in Lewiston, Maine on 8th March, 1941 to Jack and Ida (née Webber) Berman. He attended Lewiston High School but despite becoming a regional and national debating champion, did not graduate. Instead he accepted the offer of a place at Harvard University at the age of 15, to study Middle Eastern Languages and Literature. He was a resident at Winthrop House, and graduated in the Class of 1962.

ED then won a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Exeter College,Oxford University in 1962. . ED was unable to finish his doctorate at Oxford in 1965, to an unprovoked attack whilst researching in Istanbul, Turkey which left him with a cranial blood clot and given a year to live. Unable to continue this research, ED moved to London.

Theatre Career
In 1967, ED became the playwright-in-residence at the Mercury Theatre in Notting Hill. From the 1960's onwards, ED Berman became one of the most prominent figures in British Theatre. Most notably his efforts in taking arts into the community.

 The Almost-Free Theatre

In 1971 ED Berman set up the The Almost-Free Theatre Rupert Street, Soho in the West End. The audiences paid what they could afford (at least one penny) to see a range of productions based on a range of social and political themes. The Almost Free also staged numerous individual new plays by Mike Stott, Henry Livings, Michael Stevens, Wolf Mankowitz, Edward Bond and many others. Sir Tom Stoppard developed several of his key one act plays for Berman’s theatres including After Magritte, Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth and the highly successful Dirty Linen and New-Found-Land.

 Dirty Linen and New-found-land

A pair of two 1976 Tom Stoppard plays that are always performed together, produced and directed by Berman. New-Found-Land interrupts the two parts of Dirty Linen. It is a comedy about the British citizenship process, based on the real-life naturalization of Professor Berman. It was first performed as an Ambiance Lunch-Hour Theatre Club presentation at Interaction's Almost Free Theatre in 1976. Then, opening in June of 1976, it played four years at the Arts Theatre.

 Black Theatre Season

ED Berman programmed Britain’s first season of plays on black issues: Black and White Power Plays at the Ambiance in 1970. The season introduced the work of African-American playwrights like Ed Bullins and LeRoi Jones, alongside work from white playwrights on Black issues such as Israel Horovitz.

 Gay Theatre Season

The 1975 season of gay plays was the first to be staged in Britain. The season led to the formation of gay theatre companies, principally Gay Sweatshop, Britain’s first gay and lesbian theatre company, founded by Gerald Chapman.

 Dogg’s Troupe

Dogg’s Troupe staged street theatre and community events in hospitals, old people’s homes and other community venues. Berman played the roles of Professor R.L. Dogg and Otto Premiere Check.

 TOC (The Other Company)

The Other Company was set up by Ed Berman and the innovative Israeli director, Naftali Yavin, in 1968.

Inter-Action (1968-)
In 1968, ED became the founder of Inter-Action, a national charity involved in a range of arts and creativity based projects.

HMS President (1918)

In 1988 Inter-Action purchased the old, and provided a base for start-up companies for young people, and audio-visual studios. This period saved her from scrap, and preserved her for future generations. She had become a London landmark, marked on street maps, so was permitted to retain her warship title and name "HMS President" with the added suffix "(1918)" to distinguish her from the new shore establishment of the same name. Inter-Action owned President and its sister ship, Chrysanthemum, was hired to Steven Spielberg for the boat chase sequences shot in 1988 in Tilbury Docks for the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. She was then laid up in the River Medway, where the brackish water rusted her hull so badly that she was scrapped in 1995.

President was resold in 2001.

 Fun Art Bus

In 1972, a Routemaster bus was specially converted to create a small theater on the upper deck, along with a cinema showing short films and slide-shows downstairs. This was to bring theatre and arts into the community. The bus was brought back for the Olympic Torch Relay for the London 2012 Olympic Games, in which ED Berman was a torchbearer.

 Father Xmas Union

The Father Xmas Union (‘FXU’) was set up in 1969 to stage large-scale social and activist events such as protests against Selfridges and the National Front.

 City Farms

ED Berman negotiated with British Rail to take over several tracts (10,000 acres) of British Railway land which were unusable for development under modern planning legislation because of their proximity to the railway lines. Inter-Action established the first City Farm in Britain in Kentish Town, north London, in 1971. Originally called "City Farm 1" it rapidly became a model for city farms which sprang up across the country.