| Born |
West Hartford CT, April 2, 1944 |
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Education
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Williams College, BA in philosophy, cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, 1965
Williamstown Theatre Festival, apprentice, 1964
Yale Drama School in directing, 1965 -67
Yale University Graduate School in philosophy, 1972 |
| Career |
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1965 - 66
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Montserrat Summer Festival Theatre, Montserrat, British West Indies - co-founder, co-producer, director, actor, designer |
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1967 - 68
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New York Shakespeare Festival - assistant to Joseph Papp, playreader, assistant director, co-author with Joseph Papp, The Naked Hamlet
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"Shakespeare's language remains undisturbed in this version, but Papp's imaginative scissoring and repasting has sculpted a Hamlet of crystalline tensity." Time, January 5, 1968, p.55
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1968-71
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New York Shakespeare Festival - first managing director of the Other Stage, experimental wing of the NYSF |
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1969
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New York Shakespeare Festival - directed No Place to be Somebody
which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama, the first off-Broadway play to receive that honor.
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"Let's be simple about this. Charles Gordone is the most astonishing new playwright to come along since Edward Albee, and with 'No Place to Be Somebody,' now running in the Public Theatre's downstairs tryout room he lurches at us...like the ripe and roaring Albee of 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'... Everything, under Ted Cornell's strict and vigorous stage direction, is extremely well performed; the cast has been immaculately selected, and the interplay is the easiest and most effective since 'The Boys in the Band.' " Walter Kerr, The New York Times, May 18, 1969, Section 2, p.1, ff.
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| 1967 - 1991 |
Director of more than 70 theatre productions for The New York Shakespeare Festival, The Long Wharf Theatre, Arena Stage, The Hartford Stage Company, The Indiana Repertory Theatre, Playwrights' Horizons, The Actors Studio, and The Brooklyn Academy of Music among others. |
| 1972 - 1973 |
New York Shakespeare Festival - Associate Director for Television - one of my
responsibilities was to coordinate the production of Sticks and Bones by David Rabe,
directed by Robert Downey, as a television film produced by the NYSF for CBS as one of a series of specials. We devised an original production technique employing one of the portable video cameras, then used on the sidelines at football games, which had been specially equipped to accept film lenses.
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"I don't think plays and novels should be movies; I'm really against it. What I tried to do in 'Sticks and Bones' was to overcome that inherent impossibility. I think tape is the answer to every fantasy a filmmaker ever had!" Bob Downey, Sticks and Bones by Ted Cornell, Peter Powell and Bob Downey, Filmmakers' Newsletter, Volume 6, Number 7, pp. 20-26
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| 1975 - 90 |
The Franklin House Tenants Union - co-founder and first helmsperson of a tenants' group which organized a rent strike and gained control of an historical building on the
Brooklyn waterfront. My sons continue to live in this landmark hotel under the Brooklyn Bridge. |
| 1978 |
The Penn Central Railroad - freight brakeman |
| 1978 - 79 |
The Actors Studio - co-coordinator of the Playwrights and Directors Unit |
| 1980 |
The Brooklyn Academy of Music - directed Johnny On a Spot for the BAM Theatre Company.
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"...you can't help dreaming about the ideal cast, including James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Raymond Walburn and Joan Blondell. But under Edward Cornell's lickety-split staging, the Bamsters do nicely...and it's the funniest play in New York..." Jack Kroll, Newsweek, March 17, 1980, pp. 85, 86
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"Stage View, Selected Highlights of the Season, ...Directors - Edward Cornell lighted the hidden fires of 'Johnny on a Spot.' Peter Brook did everything that could be done to transcend the trite spiritual message of 'Conference of the Birds,' and Hal Prince did another kind of snazzy confidence job in sugarcoating Eva Peron." Frank Rich, The New York Times, June 8, 1980, Section D, p.1, ff.
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| 1981 - 89 |
John W. Loofbourrow Associates, Inc. - Associate - This investment banking firm with offices at One World Trade Center, specialized in tax exempt bonds for rural health care institutions. We created and privately placed bonds ranging in size from two to thirty million dollars employing original, computer-based derivatives invented by Loofbourrow. |
| 1981 - 91 |
Ohio University, Hofstra University, New York University (Circle in the Square) - Visiting Professor and Acting Instructor, variously, repeated visits |
| 1990/present |
Crooked Brook Studios - purchased and renovated an early twentieth century farmhouse, barn, and outbuildings on a 140 acre tract of land in the Adirondack Park in upstate New York. The land is now part of an undesignated wildlife corridor within the park and is managed under a 480a New York State logging agreement. Two wetlands and ponds were created on the property in 1995 by the United States Department of the Interior under a continuing Fish and Wildlife Restoration Agreement. The house and barns are my living quarters and studios and the nearby lands on Crooked Brook are the site of my environmental sculptures. |
| 1991/present |
The Wadhams Free Library - volunteer and president of the trustees - beginning in 1996 we carried out a three-year renovation and expansion of the library in commemoration of its centennial. |
| 1996 |
Crooked Brook Studios - one man show curated by Atea Ring
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"Stillness permeates his works: a hushed poetry that in its unsentimental and trenchant character recalls the views of empty roads and impenetrable woods of Edward Hopper." Susan Alyson Stein, Curator of European Paintings, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Exhibition Catalogue
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1996 - 2001
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Atea Ring Gallery - gallery artist |
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1998/present
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The Depot Theatre - board member, program committee member and actor as part of this LORT D equity theatre |
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1999 - 2002
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Town of Essex - chairman of the planning board - helped write the new comprehensive plan and zoning ordinance for the town and was central to the creation of the Essex Farm initiative which introduced production-scaled organic farming procedures to the Boquet Valley. |
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1999
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Adirondack Park Visitor Interpretive Center - "Two Views" an exhibition of paintings by Adirondack painters Linda Fisher and Edward Cornell
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"For Cornell the wilderness serves as a window to the modern day rather than a place to hide." Robin Caudell, The Plattsburgh Press Republican, August 26, 1999, pp. C1, C4
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2000
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Crooked Brook Studios - one man show
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"Almost without fail, motorists slow down on Walker Road in Wadhams when they catch sight of artist Edward Cornell's property. His 'Rotating Installation of a Minimally Processed Found Object' qualifies as a traffic stopper...The sculpture challenges the viewer's imagination...Some have referred to it as an Adirondack prayer wheel." Robin Caudell, The Plattsburgh Press Republican, October 5, 2000, p. C2
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2002
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Town of Essex - Election Day, oil on canvas, 35" x 48," placed on permanent loan to the town, now hangs in town hall |
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2003
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The Depot Theatre - donated Depo' Heat 25 Yea!, oil on canvas, 48" x 48," to the theatre in celebration of its twenty-fifth anniversary. The design became the logo of the anniversary celebrations, and the painting now hangs in the theatre lobby. |
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2004
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Merricks Bread and Coffee, Wadhams NY - The Bakery Show, summer-long, one man show of figurative and abstract oils |
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2002/present
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The Diogenes Society - founding member of this non-partisan advocacy group demanding honesty in public discourse. Designed the organization's logo and numerous signs and props. |
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2002/present
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The Boquet River Association - as a board member of this local environmental advocacy group, I re-designed the organization's logo and contribute drawings to its publications. |
| 2005/present |
Crooked Brook Studios are featured as the Art Farm on the Adirondack Harvest farm tour offering open studio access to my paintings and monumental environmental sculptures. |
| 2007 |
The Williams Club, New York City - Life in the Slow Lane - one man show of oil paintings and collage, March 29 thru May 10. |
| 2007 |
North Country Cultural Center for the Arts, Plattsburgh, NY - Old Work and New - two man show with John Kokoszka of oil paintings, sculpture and collage, May 12 thru June 18. |
Awards
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1980
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Obie Award for outstanding achievement in directing Johnny on a Spot at the Brooklyn Academy of Music |
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2004
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Mary G. Leggett Award from the Clinton Essex Franklin Library System - as outstanding trustee in the Clinton Essex Franklin area |
Selected Bibliography
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William Shakespeare’s Naked Hamlet, Joseph Papp assisted by Ted Cornell; The McMillan Co., 1969
Not Since Edward Albee, Walter Kerr, The New York Times, May 18, 1969, Section 2, p.1, ff.
No Place to be Somebody, Charles Gordone; Bobbs-Merril Company, Inc., 1969
Enter Joseph Papp, Stuart W. Little; Coward, McCann and Geohegan, Inc., 1974
A Dream Grows in Brooklyn, Jack Kroll, Newsweek, March 17, 1980, pp. 85, 86
Joe Papp, An American Life, Helen Epstein; Little, Brown and Company, 1994
A Visit to Crooked Brook, an art farm, Lee Manchester, Lake Placid News, January 6, 2006, p 21ff.
Art Farm Creations, Kim Smith Dedam, Plattsburgh Press-Republican, September 7, 2006, C1ff.
Edward Cornell, the Change Artist, Elizabeth Ward, Adirondack Life, January/February 2007, p.19ff.
Sculptor Ted Cornell Reinvents Self, Brian Mann, North Country Public Radio, Interview, October 25, 2007
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