Playwright

Cohen’s three original plays further demonstrate his versatility.

His first was The Death of Morris Biederman, produced at UCI in 1967, in which Cohen explored how traditional Jewish values can survive in the age of what his protagonist terms the “information implosion,” and in the world of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

This was followed by The Möbius Strip in 1971, in which Cohen depicted gay-straight relations in an East Coast family, years before the “gay liberation” movement made the topic an obvious one for dramatic treatment. The Los Angeles Times called it “obscenely perceptive.”

Thirty years passed before his third authorial effort. The Prince is Cohen’s take on Niccolò Machiavelli, the 15th-century Italian nobleman renowned for his treatise of the same title that describes how a ruler can most effectively retain and exploit power.