Robert Zangwill Kalfin (April 22, 1933 – September 20, 2022) was an American stage director and producer who has worked on and off Broadway and at regional theaters throughout the country.
[citation needed] The Kalfins shared a respect for the arts, particularly music, and they provided piano lessons and visits to concerts and opera.
Kalfin's maternal grandmother wrote and recited poetry, worked with amateur theater groups, and loved to sing and folk dance.
Kalfin produced his first season in St Peter's, an Episcopal Church, with a large adjoining Parish Hall that had been converted into a gymnasium.
Believing that theater reflects "shared universal experiences," Kalfin routinely put artists from different cultural and aesthetic backgrounds on the same project.
Glenn Close, Frank Langella, Christopher Lloyd, and Meryl Streep were among the artists who worked for minimum salaries to be part of the Chelsea experience.
When the show returned to Broadway, the producers gutted the theater to recreate the Chelsea's environmental set, designed by Eugene Lee.
The book puts the Chelsea in the context of American society, mainstream and counter-cultural, during the 1960s and 1970s and is the story of how the funding crisis in the arts impacted theater.
Glenn Close commented that the book interested her because it explores group dynamics and attempted to answer the question: "How does one maintain an organization that is created out of the passion and spontaneity and chemistry of certain key individuals?"