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David Rotenberg (author)

Canadian author, professor, and theatre director

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 26, 2026
Entity authorityQ63038888 ↗
Source-derived summary

David Charles Rotenberg (1950 – 9 November 2023) was a Canadian author and professor emeritus of theatre studies at York University. He also founded and served as an artistic director of the Professional Actors Lab in Toronto.

Early in his career, he worked as a theatre director in New York City, directing two Broadway shows before returning to Toronto in 1987. In 1994, he directed the first Canadian play staged in the People's Republic of China. His writing career began in 1998 with the five-book Zhong Fong mystery series set in modern Shanghai and the historical fiction novel Shanghai. He later wrote The Junction Chronicles, set in The Junction, Toronto, and started a science fiction series in 2017.

Early life and education

Rotenberg was born and raised in Toronto, He was the son of Dr. Cyril Rotenberg, a physician, and Gertrude Ruth "Gertie" Rotenberg. Rotenberg had three brothers. One of his younger brothers is Robert Rotenberg, a Canadian criminal lawyer and author.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “David Rotenberg (author)” is canadian author, professor, and theatre director. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through David, Rotenberg and author, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1950, 2023, 1987, 1994—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1950. For this dossier, David, Rotenberg and author is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “canadian author, professor, and theatre director” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q63038888. VIAF identifies the subject as 65780265. The Library of Congress control number is n98013491. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1950, 2023, 1987 and 1994.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “David Rotenberg (author)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow David Rotenberg (author) primary sources, David Rotenberg (author) archive and David research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “David Rotenberg (author)”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “David Rotenberg (author)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.