Charles Marowitz (born 1934) is an American critic, theatre director, and playwright who has been a regular columnist on Swans Commentary—a cultural-political bi-weekly—since 2004 ("Biography", Marowitz Theatre; "Commentary", Swans.com). He is perhaps best known for being "a close collaborator with Peter Brook at the Royal Shakespeare Company" and for founding and directing The Open Space Theatre, both in London ("Biography").
He is also the co-founder of Encore Magazine, published between 1954 and 1965, and co-editor of The Encore Reader: A Chronicle of the New Drama (1965). He has been a regular contributor to publications such as The New York Times, The Times (London), TheaterWeek, and American Theatre and was the lead critic on the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner until its cessation ("Biography").
He is also the author of Murdering Marlowe, about an imagined rivalry between William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, which was selected as a finalist for the GLAAD Media Awards of 2002 ("Biography"), and of the 1987 Broadway play Sherlock's Last Case starring Frank Langella.[1]
His free translations of Shakespeare have been collected in The Marowitz Shakespeare.