Corey Fischer

Corey Fischer is an actor, writer, director and teacher who has been creating and performing theatre for five decades with a focus on collaborative creation, performance and improvisation. His work has often included mask, puppetry and music. Most recently, he played Shimon Peres in Marin Theatre Company's acclaimed west-coast premiere of "Oslo." In 2016, performed his own solo play with music, "Lightning in the Brain," developed with and directed by Naomi Newman. Lightning ran for eight weeks at The Marsh, San Francisco's celebrated solo performance venue. In 1978, with Albert Greenberg and Naomi Newman, Fischer co-founded Traveling Jewish Theatre, with whom he worked for 34 years until it closed in May, 2012. He collaborated on more than two dozen works for TJT. His solo show, "Sometimes We Need a Story More Than Food" was one of the Los Angeles Times' ten best productions of 1993 and won a Marin county playwriting fellowship. In 1999 he received a Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays award for his play, "See Under: Love." (Since then it was published in Nine Contemporary Jewish Plays, University of Texas Press) Recent playwriting commissions include,"I'm Calling the Police," inspired by a story by psychiatrist and author Irvin Yalom and Robert Berger and "In the Maze of Our Own Lives," based on the history of the Group Theater. In 2007, Corey played Willy Loman in TJT's groundbreaking production of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman," directed by Aaron Davidman. The company's first production of a classic American play received glowing reviews and was on several "best productions" of the year lists. Later in 2009, Corey played the inscrutable Rabbi Saunders in "The Chosen" at the South Bay's TheatreWorks/Silicon Valley. At the end of 2012, he directed Brecht's "The Good Person of Setzuan" at California State University, East Bay. Before founding TJT, Corey worked in film, television and theatre in Los Angeles, New York and Vancouver, B.C.. Along the way, he worked with the legendary acting teacher, Jeff Corey, improvisational innovator Del Close and visionary directors Robert Altman (Corey had featured roles in Altman's M*A*S*H, "Brewster McCloud" and "McCabe and Mrs Miller") and Joseph Chaikin. Robert Hurwitt, senior drama critic (retired) for the San Francisco Chronicle, wrote that Fischer is "One of the Bay Area's acting treasures." Fischer also teaches, coaches and consults with individuals and groups.