Where would we be without him? Of course we’re talking about Dr. Joel E. Rubin. In honor of Dr. Rubin’s 95th birthday, a number of people have decided that the most meaningful celebration would be an informal Festschrift* of contributions from the many people whose lives he has positively impacted over his long career. See below for the Call for Contributions honoring Dr. Rubin for his birthday.
*In academia, a Festschrift is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the honoree’s colleagues, former pupils, and friends.
The Celebrating Dr. Joel @ 95 Steering Committee want gather tributes, photographs, ephemera, and hope you will contribute some memories about any way that Dr. Rubin touched your career, your life, your professional development. Ideally, this project might be a print-on-demand book or it might be a special publication from the USITT. These details are still being worked out.
Dr. Rubin’s Career
Executive Vice President, Kliegl Brothers Stage Lighting, New York City, 1954-1985
Principal Consultant, Joel E. Rubin & Associates, 1985-1993
Principal Consultant Theater Planning, Artec Consultant Inc., 1993—2005
Principal Consultant, Joel E. Rubin & Associate, since 2005
Education
1949 Case Institute of Technology, Bachelor of Science
1951 Yale University, Master of Fine Arts
1960 Stanford University, Doctor of Philosophy
They hope you will contribute some memories about any way that Dr. Rubin touched your career, your life, your professional development—our Entertainment Industry.
A few topics that you might consider talking about:
- Dr. Rubin’s Dissertation: The Technical Development of Stage Lighting Apparatus in the United States, 1900-1950
- Dr. Rubin and Lee Watson’s Book: Theatrical Lighting Practice
- Working with Dr. Rubin at Kliegl Bros
- How Kliegl equipment impacted your work
- Joining the USITT, USITT conferences, and what that has meant
- OISTAT and International adventures with Joel
- Dinners and book shopping with Dr. Rubin behind the Iron Curtain
- Doing a Prague Quadrennial
- Going on an OISTAT mission
- Theatre Consulting, Artec, and other theatre projects
- Becoming a USITT Fellow
- Getting the Rubin USITT Founders Award
Fast Facts
- Memories and Materials should be sent to this special email: CelebratingDrJoelat95@gmail.com
- Or uploaded to this Dropbox: www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/2is38mjjggc29qistmejv/h?dl=0&rlkey=1lq2dyve626qfv6995lsbql4r
- Recommended word count: 250 to 750 words
- Photographs/scans of ephemera format: please send high resolution 300DPI JPG files
- You can be free with your memories; they will edit to fit as appropriate for space and contemporary social conventions.
- Don’t forget to tell them who you are, how you know Dr. Rubin. What your past and current titles/affiliations are. How you want to be identified in our project.
- And we would love a photo of you… a head shot or if you have one of you and Dr. Rubin that would be even better.
- Do you have some other ideas about what we should be including?
They look forward to hearing from you!
Celebrating Dr. Joel @ 95 Steering Committee
Richard Pilbrow, Gordon Pearlman, Steve Terry, Josephine Marquez, Christine Kaiser, Randy Earle, Elynmarie Kazel, Sandy Bonds, Michael Ramsaur. Eric Fielding (art direction/design) and Pat MacKay (project wrangler).
