Judith Mihalyi Auberjonois is an American theatrical producer, writer, critic, and former actor. Her career includes Broadway performances, work with the American Conservatory Theater, theater criticism, and the founding and artistic direction of Los Angeles Classic Theatre Works, a company associated with radio drama and classical theater.
Background
Judith Helen Mihalyi was born on February 22, 1944, in New York City, to Dave Mihalyi and Elsa Perlmutter Mihalyi. Her father was described as a Hungarian immigrant and cabinet-maker. She grew up in a family whose experience combined immigrant enterprise with an appreciation for education and the arts.
Auberjonois later became part of a multigenerational theatrical family. Her husband, René Murat Auberjonois, was an actor, and their children Tessa and Remy-Luc also pursued acting careers.
Education
Auberjonois received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1965. The institution, then known as Carnegie Institute of Technology, had developed a strong national reputation in drama and the performing arts as well as in science and technology; its drama program formed part of the university's long-standing professional theater tradition.
Her education in drama preceded a career that moved between acting, theater criticism, producing, and writing. The sequence reflected the close relationship between performance and production in the American repertory and nonprofit theater worlds of the 1960s through the 1990s.
Auberjonois began her professional career as an actor with the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, working there from 1965 to 1969. The company, founded in 1965, became one of the major nonprofit resident theaters in the United States, combining classical repertory with contemporary drama. During this period she also performed on Broadway in King Lear and A Cry of Players, both of which opened in 1968.
In the late 1960s she worked in New York theater, including performances associated with Lincoln Center. She later became a theater critic for Los Angeles Weekly and New West magazine during the 1980s. Her criticism placed her within the Los Angeles theater press at a time when the city was developing a substantial network of nonprofit theaters and alternative performance organizations.
From 1984 to 1989, Auberjonois founded and helped lead Los Angeles Classic Theatre Works. The company produced radio drama and classical theater, working with established actors and collaborating with broadcasters including KCRW and the BBC. Contemporary accounts described Auberjonois as an artistic co-director and identified her as a force behind the company's development and financing.
Auberjonois served as a special project coordinator at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles in 1990 and as development director at Dave Bell Associates from 1991 to 1993. Dave Bell Associates was a Los Angeles entertainment and development company. She subsequently continued as a freelance writer and producer and was also associated with the Theater Program of the National Endowment for the Arts as an on-site reporter.
Achievements
She founded and helped lead Los Angeles Classic Theatre Works, a company that produced radio drama and classical theater in collaboration with prominent actors and broadcasters.
She developed a career spanning professional acting, Broadway performance, theater criticism, theatrical production, and writing.
Personality
René Auberjonois described Judith as strong, insightful, hardworking, and possessing an acute aesthetic sensibility. He also credited her with creating a peaceful and carefully shaped home environment and referred to her as the producer of the household.
Physical Characteristics:
A 1997 interview described Auberjonois as five feet tall.
Quotes from others about the person
René Auberjonois publicly described Judith as a powerful and strong woman with exceptional insight and an exquisite aesthetic sense. He credited her with helping create a stable family life and with bringing a distinctive sense of order and beauty to their home.
Connections
Auberjonois married actor René Murat Auberjonois on October 19, 1963. They remained married until his death in 2019. Their children are Tessa Auberjonois and Remy-Luc Auberjonois, both of whom became actors.
The family maintained longstanding connections with American theater. René and Judith Auberjonois both studied at Carnegie Mellon, and their household brought together acting, writing, producing, and other forms of theatrical work across two generations.
Father:
Dave Mihalyi
He was Auberjonois's father and worked as a cabinet-maker.
Mother:
Elsa Perlmutter Mihalyi
She was Auberjonois's mother.
Son:
Remy-Luc Auberjonois
He became an actor known for work in theater, film, and television.
Daughter:
Tessa Auberjonois
She became an actor and performed in American regional theater.
husband:
René Murat Auberjonois
He was an actor and singer who worked extensively in theater, film, television, and voice performance.
Leaping Into Her Father’s Advice
Identifies Judith Auberjonois as a theatrical producer and writer and discusses her daughter Tessa's theatrical family background.
Turned On to Radio Drama
Reports on Los Angeles Classic Theatre Works and identifies Auberjonois as a co-director involved in its radio-drama productions.
Carnegie Mellon Magazine: News Briefs
Identifies Auberjonois as a Carnegie Mellon alumna and participant in a memorial initiative involving former drama students.
2002
Five Questions for Judith Auberjonois
Profiles Auberjonois as a screenwriter and producer and discusses her long career in theater and film and her marriage to René Auberjonois.
2021
1997 Q&A – René Auberjonois
Contains René Auberjonois's descriptions of Judith's character, aesthetic judgment, family role, and background.
