Ronald Tavel

Ronald Tavel ( born May 17, 1936 in Brooklyn, New York City; † 23 March 2009) was an American writer, stage and screenwriter.

Biography

In the late 1950s Tavel traveled through North Africa. On the basis of his experiences, he wrote from 1960 to 1963 the 800 - page novel Street of Stairs. Some excerpts from this manuscript were first 1964/65 published in the Chicago Review; an abbreviated edition was published in 1968 by Maurice Giro slides in New York. The complete novel has not been printed.

Tavel was known. Overall Tavel wrote especially for his cooperation with the multimedia pop art artist Andy Warhol between November 1964 and March 1967 in this time 14 screenplays for Warhol films (including the sequences Their Town and Hanoi Hannah in The Chelsea Girls ). He had previously worked with the Independent filmmaker Jack Smith, with whom he was a close friend.

From 1965 to 1967 Tavel was the playwright for the pieces and founder of the Theater of the Ridiculous in New York. In the following years he worked alongside various other theater engagements with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio together. Since the mid- 80s, he issued a lecturer in Creative Writing courses at various American universities.

Tavels work was clearly influenced by the absurd theater and the Camp aesthetic.

He died in March 2009 on a flight from Berlin to Bangkok.

Novels

• Street of Stairs. Olympia Press, New York 1968. German translation: stages. Translated by Otto Wilck. . Olympia Press, Darmstadt 1969 (reprinted in revised form: street of steps Männerschwarm -Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86300-030-1. . )

Screenplays

• Harlot (1964 )
• Screen test no. 1 (1965)
• Horse (1965 )
• Vinyl ( 1965)
• The Life of Juanita Castro ( 1965)
• Poor Little Rich Girl (1965 )
• Space (1965 )
• Kitchen (1965 )
• Screen Test (1965 )
• Screen Test # 2 ( 1965)
• The Chelsea Girls ( 1966)
• Hedy (1966 )
• Lupe (1966 ) (scenario )
• Screen Test # 3 ( 1966)
• Screen Test # 4 ( 1966)
• Superboy (1966 )