RH is a former Oxford, Fulbright, and English-Speaking Union Scholar, who has acted, directed, taught and published on both sides of the Atlantic. He was born in London during the Blitz to German Jews who had fled Hitler just in time to be bombed by their erstwhile countrymen. This complicated heritage informs much of his writing and performance.
As a writer, he is best known for his memoir, LAST DANCE AT THE HOTEL KEMPINSKI which has been called “one of the best books ever written on the long arm of the Holocaust” (Jewish Book News). It has a parallel life as a seven-part solo performance cycle called MOSAIC: FRAGMENTS OF A JEWISH LIFE, which he has performed all over the US and in London, Berlin and Vienna; the Village Voice called it “completely glorious.” For his work as a writer and performer he has received two NYFA (New York Foundation for the Arts) Fellowships and the Robert and Adele S. Blank Jewish Arts Award.
The titles of which he is proudest, however, are self-bestowed: Minister of Culture, Wine Czar and Dean of Faculty at the Cornelia Street Cafe in Grennwich Village, which he founded with two other artists in 1977. Every word of Kempinski and Mosaic was written to be presented there.