Burnim, Kalman A. 1928-2006

(Kalman Aaron Burnim)

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born March 7, 1928, in Malden, MA; died of a stroke, July 30, 2006. Historian, educator, and author. A theater historian and professor emeritus at Tufts University, Burnim was often noted for founding the Tufts in London Program, through which American students traveled to England to immerse themselves in theater. Before going to college himself, Burnim served in the U.S. Army under General Douglas MacArthur in Japan. After World War II, he returned to Massachusetts and obtained his B.A. at Tufts in 1950. The next year, he completed a master's degree at Indiana University. Burnim worked as a manager for the New England Adding Machine Company in Boston before completing a Ph.D. at Yale University in 1958. Entering academia, he taught at Valparaiso University and the University of Pittsburgh in the late 1950s before returning to Tufts as an assistant professor. Burnim would remain at Tufts for the rest of his career, becoming a full professor in 1965, the Fletcher Professor of Oratory and Drama from 1971 to 1987, and chair of the drama department from 1966 to 1975. He founded his study abroad program in 1967, and its success inspired other study abroad programs in different fields of study. Burnim was also a research professor at Washington University from 1975 to 1976 and again from 1985 to 1986. After retiring, he continued to write and conduct research, most notably during the 1990s, when he researched the picture catalog for the Garrick Club. This undertaking resulted in Pictures in the Garrick Club: A Catalogue of the Paintings (1997), which he edited with Andrew Wilton. This was followed by The Richard Bebb Collection in the Garrick Club (2001), also with Wilton, and Brief Lives, Sitters and Artists in the Portraits in the Garrick Club (2003), with John Baskett. These contributions led the Garrick Club to name Burnim an honorary member. Among other publishing accomplishments, Burnim collaborated with Philip H. Highfill, Jr., and Edward A. Langhans to produce the sixteen-volume reference tome The Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London Stage, 1660-1800 (1973-1993). Awarded numerous grants and fellowships from such organizations as the Folger Library and the American Council for Learned Societies, Burnim remained active in his later years. He was, for example, on the executive committee for the International Federation for Theatre Research from 1979 to 1983 and again from 1991 to 1995, and was a consultant to the Folger Shakespeare Library from 2002 to 2005. Burnim was also a former president of the American Society for Theatre Research.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Times (London, England), September 4, 2006, p. 49.