Hal Holbrook - Mark Twain Tonight April 16, 2009

DeWitt Series Performance

A LIVING BREATHING AMERICAN MASTERPIECE! It is, quite simply, one of the most acclaimed and enduring performances in the history of theatre. Nearly 50 years ago, a young actor took the stage in a tiny off-Broadway theatre and introduced the world to a man they’d never forget. The actor was Hal Holbrook. The man was Mark Twain.
When Hal Holbrook’s Mark Twain Tonight! opened in 1959, it took the theatre world by storm and became an immediate hit.
Holbrook won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 1966, the year the show opened on Broadway. What started as a college honors project for aspiring actor Hal Holbrook soon became THE model for one-man theatrical performances. The actor has impersonated the famous creator of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn more than 2,000 times. Holbrook adds to his Twain material nearly every year, editing and changing it to fit the times. He has over fifteen hours of Twain material which he draws from with more coming all the time.
Critics have said “the transformation is so complete as to be almost unsettling at times. The combination of Holbrook’s physical and vocal talents and the potency of Twain’s words is a mesmerizing thing to behold,” Washington Post, 1996).
Hal Holbrook has enjoyed a varied career with numerous stage and fi lm credits; however, he will always be associated with his personification of Twain. Holbrook was recently nominated for an Oscar Award for his supporting actor role in Into the Wild.

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