Editing Hal Holbrook (section)

===''Mark Twain Tonight!''===
{{main|Mark Twain Tonight!{{!}}''Mark Twain Tonight!''}}
Holbrook's first solo performance as Twain was at [[Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania|Lock Haven State Teachers College]] in Pennsylvania in 1954.  [[Ed Sullivan]] saw him and gave 31-year-old Holbrook his first national exposure on ''[[The Ed Sullivan Show]]'' on February 12, 1956.<ref name="Trump"/> Holbrook was also a member of the Valley Players (1941–1962), a summer-stock theater company based in [[Holyoke, Massachusetts]], which performed at Mountain Park Casino Playhouse at Mountain Park.<ref name="Twain"/> He joined [[The Lambs Club]] in 1955, where he began developing his one-man show.<ref name="Odyssey"/> He was a member of the cast for several years and performed ''Mark Twain Tonight!'' as the 1957 season opener.<ref name="Twain">{{cite web |url= http://holyokehistory.blogspot.com/ |title= Holyoke History Room & Archives '''Valley Players Collection (1941-1993)'''. HPLA2007.527 |publisher= Holyokehistory.com |access-date= April 12, 2015 |archive-date= February 16, 2012 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120216184827/http://holyokehistory.blogspot.com/ |url-status= live }}</ref> The [[United States Department of State|State Department]] even sent him on a European tour, which included pioneering appearances behind the [[Iron Curtain]].<ref name="Odyssey"/>

In 1959, Holbrook first played the role [[off-Broadway]].<ref name="Trump"/> [[Columbia Records]] recorded an LP of excerpts from the show.<ref name="biography"/>

[[File:The Brighter Day Scene 1954.jpg|thumb|Holbrook in ''The Brighter Day Scene'', August 1954]]
Holbrook performed in a special production for the [[1964 New York World's Fair|1964/1965 New York World's Fair]] for the Bell Telephone Pavilion.  Jo Mielziner created an innovative audio-visual ride experience and used Holbrook's acting talents on 65 different action screens for "The Ride of Communications" with the movie itself known as ''From Drumbeats to Telstar''.<ref name="Worlds">{{cite web|url=http://www.westland.net/ny64fair/map-docs/technology.htm|title=New York World's Fair '64|publisher=Westland.net|access-date=April 12, 2015|archive-date=February 25, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150225005616/http://www.westland.net/ny64fair/map-docs/technology.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1967, ''Mark Twain Tonight!'' was presented on television by [[CBS]] and [[Xerox]], and Holbrook received an [[Emmy]] for his performance.<ref name="biography"/> Holbrook's Twain first played on Broadway in 1966, and again in 1977 and 2005; Holbrook was 80 years old during his final Broadway run, older (for the first time) than the character he was portraying.<ref name="biography"/><ref name="SLCHH">{{cite news|title=Mark Twain. Now a Career for the Mustachioed|newspaper=The New York Times|date=January 24, 2011|author=Malia Wollan|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/24/books/24twain.html|quote=...has played Twain going on 57 years, longer than Samuel Langhorne Clemens did.|access-date=February 24, 2017|archive-date=February 2, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202070710/http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/24/books/24twain.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Holbrook won a Tony Award for the performance in 1966.<ref name="biography"/> Until Holbrook retired in 2017, aged 92, ''Mark Twain Tonight!'' toured the country, which amounted to over 2,100 performances. This included one of his first performances in the spring of 1962 and one of his last in September 2014, at his high-school'' alma mater'' in Indiana.<ref name=":0"/>