A Tribute to Howard Rubenstein

HOWARD RUBENSTEIN (1931-2020) was a physician, writer, and photographer.  He was born in Chicago and graduated from Lakeview High School.  In 1953 he received a B.A. from Carleton College where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi and won the Noyes Prize for excellence in ancient Greek studies.  In 1957 Rubenstein received an M.D. from Harvard Medical School.  In 1967 he was appointed Physician and Chief of Allergy at the Harvard University Health Services.  In 1989 he was appointed a Medical Consultant to the Department of Social Services, state of California.  He published over 40 scientific papers and is listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World.  He retired from the practice of medicine in 2000 and devoted his retirement years to writing, photography, and landscape gardening. 

Howard Rubenstein published 10 plays:  Agamemnon, a play by Aeschylus (translated from the Greek by Rubenstein with his reconstructed stage directions) 1997; The Trojan Women, a play by Euripides, translated and adapted, winner of the most “San Diego Playbill” awards theater season 2001; Brothers All, 2007; The Golem, Man of Earth, 2007; Tony and Cleo, 2008; Britannicus, a play by Racine, 2009;  Romance of the Western Chamber – a Musical, with Max Lee, 2010 (sponsored by Lilly Cheng and the Confucius Institute SDSU, winner of Asian Heritage Award in Performing Arts 2011); Shiloh, 2015; The Defiant Soul, 2016; Prometheus Bound, by Aeschylus, adapted, 2020.

Romance of the Western Chamber – a Musical had its world premiere September 9, 2011 at the Dongpo Theatre, Hangzhou, China, in Rubenstein’s English with Mandarin supertitles; this was the first time a version of Xi Xiang Ji was performed anywhere in the world in the English language.  This musical had its American premiere at the TADA! Theatre, New York City, September 16, 2017, the first time that a version of Xi Xiang Ji was performed in the English language in the western world.  Other plays by Rubenstein have been produced in San Diego, NYC, Florida, and Washington state.

Rubenstein also published several books including his last, Romance of the Western Chamber: English-Chinese Version for Children, English Version by Howard Rubenstein, Translated into Mandarin by Li-Rong Lilly Cheng, Illustrated by Moch Fajar Shobaru, Edited by Judith S. Rubenstein, 2020.   Howard Rubenstein’s plays and books are available on amazon.com.

Howard Rubenstein was married to Judith Selig Rubenstein.  They have four children and four grandchildren.