A VIEW FROM THE CROW’S NEST

Writing and Essays of Murray Ross

This book is a compilation of writings and essays by Colorado Springs theatre director, Murray Ross. Murray, along with his wife, Betty, founded THEATREWORKS. It became one of the leading small theatres in the country. For four decades Murray Ross mounted 100 plus productions, many of which received rave reviews, and built an audience of thousands. This collection includes Ross’ informed ramblings through space and time and decades of closely examined experience as well as his witty, substantive letters from England, unfolding the delights of the intense tours of English theatre that he also led for 18 years. Ross’ rigorous insights into the dramas he directed at THEATREWORKS offer a repository of stagecraft and anecdote, wisdom and humor about each of these great plays, whether Shakespeare, the classics, or contemporary. A bountiful collection of theatrical insight.

June 2020    Compiled by Elizabeth R. Ross    Edited by Lauren Arnest

256 pages . 7×10 . 44 Essays

ISBN# 978-1-943829-25-5 softcover

$29.95   Local purchase available at Hooked on Books, downtown and Clausen Books.

May I never grow too old to treasure ‘Once upon a time.’


–Anonymous

A Good Friend Speaks

Murray Ross was an unstoppable dynamo, a supremely gifted theatre director, one of the most energetic beings on earth, a consummate lover of life, hilariously funny and also intellectually sharp as a well-honed dagger. Almost nothing was alien to Murray Ross. He could wrap his mind and his viscera around the most significant cultural and political matters, then bound away to delight in Lenny Bruce’s raunchy humor or riff on Miles Davis’ soulful trumpet flights or Hideo Nomo’s 2001 no-hitter (He was there).
This book’s title, A VIEW FROM THE CROW’S NEST, derives from Murray’s mysterious nickname, “Crow.” The volume contains the thoughts of the myriad-minded man about a staggering range of matters—the delights of his favorite, immortal playwright; his expert musings on the dramatic
structures of classical plays from the 12th through the 21st century; a timeless unpacking of the contentious 1991 Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas
hearings, which Ross judges both as a tragic miscarriage of justice and a sustained theatrical drama that captivated all who watched the two weeks of televised hearings. The collection includes Ross’s informed ramblings through space and time and decades of closely examined experience, as well as his witty, substantive letters from England, unfolding the delights of the intense tours of English theater that the masterful man led for 18 years. Classics and Contemporary: Ross’s rigorous insights into the dramas he directed at THEATREWORKS offer a repository of stagecraft and anecdote,wisdom and humor about each of these great plays’ wrenching descriptions and comic insights into our ageless human condition.

–Bob Seidman

And Another . . .

Late in this marvelous book, Murray Ross claims that he is no writer. While it is true that he was a man of action, a director par excellence, and a manager of actors, technicians, musicians, dancers—players of all kinds—he was also a real writer with a marvelous sense of rhythm and an ear for the finely-turned phrase. He was a raconteur, a wit, a funny and compassionate man, intensely involved in everything he did.

—David Mason

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