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He didn't intend to become a director, or to direct some of the most brilliant—and sometimes maddening—personalities of the age, but in a charming, hilarious, and unexpected way, that's what happened. O'Brien has had a long, successful career on Broadway and as artistic director of San Diego's Old Globe Theatre, but the history of the movement that shaped him has been overlooked. In the middle of the last century, some extraordinary people forged a link in the chain connecting European influences such as the Moscow Art Theatre and Great Britain's National Theatre with the flourishing American theater of today. O'Brien was there to see and record it all, in beautifully vivid detail. Funny, exuberant, unfailingly honest, Jack Be Nimble is the tale of those missing heroes, performances, and cultural battles. 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