1.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
2.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
3.
Broadway theatre
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Along with Londons West End theatres, Broadway theatres are widely considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. The Theater District is a popular tourist attraction in New York City, the great majority of Broadway shows are musicals. They presented Shakespeare plays and ballad operas such as The Beggars Opera, in 1752, William Hallam sent a company of twelve actors from Britain to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager. They established a theatre in Williamsburg, Virginia and opened with The Merchant of Venice, the company moved to New York in the summer of 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida. The Revolutionary War suspended theatre in New York, but thereafter theatre resumed in 1798, the Bowery Theatre opened in 1826, followed by others. Blackface minstrel shows, a distinctly American form of entertainment, became popular in the 1830s, by the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan. In 1829, at Broadway and Prince Street, Niblos Garden opened, the 3, 000-seat theatre presented all sorts of musical and non-musical entertainments. In 1844, Palmos Opera House opened and presented opera for four seasons before bankruptcy led to its rebranding as a venue for plays under the name Burtons Theatre. The Astor Opera House opened in 1847, booth played the role for a famous 100 consecutive performances at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1865, and would later revive the role at his own Booths Theatre. Other renowned Shakespeareans who appeared in New York in this era were Henry Irving, Tommaso Salvini, Fanny Davenport, lydia Thompson came to America in 1868 heading a small theatrical troupe, adapting popular English burlesques for middle-class New York audiences. Thompsons troupe called the British Blondes, was the most popular entertainment in New York during the 1868–1869 theatrical season, the six-month tour ran for almost six extremely profitable years. Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown beginning around 1850, in 1870, the heart of Broadway was in Union Square, and by the end of the century, many theatres were near Madison Square. Broadways first long-run musical was a 50-performance hit called The Elves in 1857, New York runs continued to lag far behind those in London, but Laura Keenes musical burletta The Seven Sisters shattered previous New York records with a run of 253 performances. It was at a performance by Keenes troupe of Our American Cousin in Washington, the production was a staggering five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length, it ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and the Post was the first show to call itself a musical comedy, Tony Pastor opened the first vaudeville theatre one block east of Union Square in 1881, where Lillian Russell performed. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 and 1890, with book and lyrics by Harrigan and music by his father-in-law David Braham. They starred high quality singers, instead of the women of repute who had starred in earlier musical forms. Plays could run longer and still draw in the audiences, leading to better profits, as in England, during the latter half of the century, the theatre began to be cleaned up, with less prostitution hindering the attendance of the theatre by women
4.
Theater (structure)
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A theater, theatre or playhouse, is a structure where theatrical works or plays are performed, or other performances such as musical concerts may be produced. While a theater is not required for performance, a theater serves to define the performance and audience spaces, the facility is traditionally organized to provide support areas for performers, the technical crew and the audience members. There are as many types of theaters as there are types of performance, theaters may be built specifically for a certain types of productions, they may serve for more general performance needs or they may be adapted or converted for use as a theater. They may range from open-air amphitheaters to ornate, cathedral-like structures to simple, some theaters may have a fixed acting area, while some theaters, such as black box theaters, may not, allowing the director and designers to construct an acting area suitable for the production. The most important of these areas is the acting space generally known as the stage, in some theaters, specifically proscenium theaters, arena theaters and amphitheaters, this area is permanent part of the structure. In a blackbox theater the area is undefined so that each theater may adapt specifically to a production. In addition to these spaces, there may be offstage spaces as well. These include wings on either side of a stage where props, sets. A Prompters box may be found backstage, in an amphitheater, an area behind the stage may be designated for such uses while a blackbox theater may have spaces outside of the actual theater designated for such uses. Often a theater will incorporate other spaces intended for the performers, a booth facing the stage may be incorporated into the house where lighting and sound personnel may view the show and run their respective instruments. Other rooms in the building may be used for dressing rooms, rehearsal rooms, spaces for constructing sets, props and costumes, as well as storage. There are usually two main entrances, one at the front, used by the audience, that leads into the back of the audience, the second is called the stage door, and it is accessible from backstage. This is the means by which the cast and crew enter and exit the theater and this term can also be used to refer to going to a lot of shows or living in a big theater city, such as New York or Chicago. All theaters provide a space for an audience, the audience is usually separated from the performers by the proscenium arch. In proscenium theaters and amphitheaters, the arch, like the stage, is a permanent feature of the structure. This area is known as the auditorium or the house, the word parterre is sometimes used to refer to a particular subset of this area. In North American usage this is usually the rear seating block beneath the gallery whereas in Britain it can mean either the area in front near the orchestra pit, the term can also refer to the side stalls in some usages. Derived from the gardening term parterre, the usage refers to the pattern of both the seats of an auditorium and of the planted beds seen in garden construction
5.
Manhattan
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Manhattan is the most densely populated borough of New York City, its economic and administrative center, and the citys historical birthplace. The borough is coextensive with New York County, founded on November 1,1683, Manhattan is often described as the cultural and financial capital of the world and hosts the United Nations Headquarters. Many multinational media conglomerates are based in the borough and it is historically documented to have been purchased by Dutch colonists from Native Americans in 1626 for 60 guilders which equals US$1062 today. New York County is the United States second-smallest county by land area, on business days, the influx of commuters increases that number to over 3.9 million, or more than 170,000 people per square mile. Manhattan has the third-largest population of New York Citys five boroughs, after Brooklyn and Queens, the City of New York was founded at the southern tip of Manhattan, and the borough houses New York City Hall, the seat of the citys government. The name Manhattan derives from the word Manna-hata, as written in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, a 1610 map depicts the name as Manna-hata, twice, on both the west and east sides of the Mauritius River. The word Manhattan has been translated as island of hills from the Lenape language. The United States Postal Service prefers that mail addressed to Manhattan use New York, NY rather than Manhattan, the area that is now Manhattan was long inhabited by the Lenape Native Americans. In 1524, Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano – sailing in service of King Francis I of France – was the first European to visit the area that would become New York City. It was not until the voyage of Henry Hudson, an Englishman who worked for the Dutch East India Company, a permanent European presence in New Netherland began in 1624 with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement on Governors Island. In 1625, construction was started on the citadel of Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island, later called New Amsterdam, the 1625 establishment of Fort Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan Island is recognized as the birth of New York City. In 1846, New York historian John Romeyn Brodhead converted the figure of Fl 60 to US$23, variable-rate myth being a contradiction in terms, the purchase price remains forever frozen at twenty-four dollars, as Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace remarked in their history of New York. Sixty guilders in 1626 was valued at approximately $1,000 in 2006, based on the price of silver, Straight Dope author Cecil Adams calculated an equivalent of $72 in 1992. In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant was appointed as the last Dutch Director General of the colony, New Amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city on February 2,1653. In 1664, the English conquered New Netherland and renamed it New York after the English Duke of York and Albany, the Dutch Republic regained it in August 1673 with a fleet of 21 ships, renaming the city New Orange. Manhattan was at the heart of the New York Campaign, a series of battles in the early American Revolutionary War. The Continental Army was forced to abandon Manhattan after the Battle of Fort Washington on November 16,1776. The city, greatly damaged by the Great Fire of New York during the campaign, became the British political, British occupation lasted until November 25,1783, when George Washington returned to Manhattan, as the last British forces left the city
6.
John Barrymore
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John Barrymore was an American actor on stage, screen and radio. After a success as Hamlet in London in 1925, Barrymore left the stage for 14 years, in the silent film era, he was well received in such pictures as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Sherlock Holmes and The Sea Beast. During this period, he gained his nickname, the Great Profile and his stage-trained voice proved an asset when sound films were introduced, and three of his works, Grand Hotel, Twentieth Century and Midnight have been inducted into the National Film Registry. Barrymores personal life has been the subject of attention before. He struggled with alcohol abuse from the age of 14, was married and divorced four times, Much of his later work involved self-parody and the portrayal of drunken has-beens. His obituary in The Washington Post observed that with the passing of the years – and as his life became more public – he became, despite his genius in the theater. Barrymore was born John Sidney Blyth in Philadelphia, and was known by family, although the Barrymore family bible puts his date of birth as February 15,1882, his birth certificate shows February 14. He was the youngest of three children and his siblings were Lionel, and Ethel. Barrymores mother, Georgie Drew Barrymore, was born into a prominent theatrical family, Barrymores maternal grandparents were Louisa Lane Drew, a well-known 19th-century American actress and the manager of the Arch Street Theatre, and John Drew, also an actor whose specialty was comedy. Barrymores maternal uncles were two more thespians, John Drew, Jr. and Sidney, Much of Barrymores early life was unsettled. In October 1882, the family toured in the US for a season with Polish actress Helena Modjeska, the following year his parents toured again with Modjeska but left the children behind. Modjeska was influential in the family, and she insisted that all three children be baptized into the Catholic Church, in 1884 the family traveled to London as part of Augustin Dalys theatrical company, returning to the US two years later. As a child, Barrymore was sometimes badly behaved, and he was sent away to schools in an attempt to instill discipline, the strategy was not always successful, and he attended elementary schools in four states. He was sent first to the annex of the Convent of Notre Dame in Philadelphia. I wanted to be an artist and he was expelled from the school in 1891 and was sent to Seton Hall Preparatory School in New Jersey, where Lionel was already studying. Barrymore was unhappy at Seton and was withdrawn, after which he attended several public schools in New York. In 1892, his grandmother Louisa Drews business began to suffer, the loss of their mothers income prompted both Ethel and Lionel to seek work as professional actors. Barrymores father was absent from the family home while on tour, and when he returned he would spend time at The Lambs
7.
Lionel Barrymore
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Lionel Barrymore was an American actor of stage, screen and radio as well as a film director. He is also remembered as Ebenezer Scrooge in annual broadcasts of A Christmas Carol during his last two decades. He was a member of the theatrical Barrymore family, Lionel Barrymore was born Lionel Herbert Blythe in Philadelphia, the son of actors Georgiana Drew Barrymore and Maurice Barrymore. He was the brother of Ethel and John Barrymore, the uncle of John Drew Barrymore and Diana Barrymore. He attended private schools as a child, including the Art Students League of New York, while raised a Roman Catholic, Barrymore attended the Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia. Barrymore graduated from Seton Hall Preparatory School, the Roman Catholic college prep school and he was married twice, to actresses Doris Rankin and Irene Fenwick, a one-time lover of his brother, John. Doriss sister Gladys was married to Lionels uncle Sidney Drew, which made Gladys both his aunt and sister-in-law, Doris Rankin bore Lionel two daughters, Ethel Barrymore II and Mary Barrymore. Barrymore never truly recovered from the deaths of his girls, and their loss undoubtedly strained his marriage to Doris Rankin, Years later, Barrymore developed a fatherly affection for Jean Harlow, who was born about the same time as his daughters. When Harlow died in 1937, Barrymore and Clark Gable mourned her as though she had been family. Although reluctant to follow his parents career, Barrymore appeared together with his formidable grandmother Louisa Lane Drew on tour and he later recounted that I didnt want to act. I wanted to paint or draw, the theater was not in my blood, I was related to the theater by marriage only, it was merely a kind of in-law of mine I had to live with. Nevertheless, he found success on stage in character roles and continued to act, although he still wanted to become a painter. He appeared on Broadway in his twenties with his uncle John Drew Jr. in such plays as The Second in Command and The Mummy and the Hummingbird. Both were produced by Charles Frohman, who produced plays for Barrymore and his siblings, John. The Other Girl in 1903–04 was a success for Barrymore. In 1905, he appeared with John and Ethel in a pantomime, starring as the character in Pantaloon and playing another character in the other half of the bill. In 1906, after a series of disappointing appearances in plays, Barrymore and his first wife, the actress Doris Rankin, left their careers and travelled to Paris. He did not achieve success as a painter, and in 1909 he returned to the US, the producers gave appendicitis as the reason for his sudden departure
8.
William Gillette
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William Hooker Gillette was an American actor-manager, playwright, and stage-manager in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best remembered for portraying Sherlock Holmes on stage and in a 1916 silent film long thought lost and his portrayal of Holmes helped create the modern image of the detective. His use of the cap and the curved pipe became enduring symbols of the character. He assumed the role on stage more than 1,300 times over thirty years, starred in the silent motion picture based on his Holmes play, and voiced the character twice on radio. William Gillette was born in Nook Farm, Hartford, Connecticut, a literary and intellectual center with such as Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe. Gillettes father Francis was a former United States Senator and a crusader for public education, temperance, the abolition of slavery, Gillette had three brothers and a sister. Another sister named Mary died as a small child and his eldest brother Frank Ashbell Gillette went to California and died there in 1859 from consumption. The third oldest brother Robert joined the Union Army and served in the Antietam campaign, was invalided home sick, recovered, Robert Gillette was assigned to the U. S. S. Gettysburg and took part in assaults on Fort Fisher. He was killed the morning after the surrender of the fort when the magazine exploded. His brother Edward moved to Iowa and his sister Elisabeth married George Henry Warner, at the age of 20, he left Hartford to begin his apprenticeship as an actor. Afterward, he was an actor for six years through Boston, New York. He irregularly attended classes at a few institutions, although he never completed their programs, Francis supplied him with an allowance on which to subsist. His fathers health began to fail in 1878, and William forsook the stage for more than a year to care for him in his final illness. Upon his fathers death, he and George Henry Warner were named executors of Francis estate, and they, Elisabeth, in 1882, Gillette married Helen Nichols of Detroit. She died in 1888 from peritonitis caused by a ruptured appendix, Gillette was hired as playwright, director, and actor for $50 per week in 1881, while performing at Cincinnati, by two of the Frohman brothers, Gustave and Daniel. The first play that he wrote and produced was The Professor and it debuted in the Madison Square Theatre, lasting 151 performances, with a subsequent tour through many states. That same year, he produced Esmeralda, written together with Frances Hodgson Burnett, early in his career, Gillette realised that it would be in the triple role of playwright, director, and actor that he could make the most money
9.
The Pirates of Penzance
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The Pirates of Penzance, or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The operas official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences and critics. Its London debut was on 3 April 1880, at the Opera Comique, the story concerns Frederic, who, having completed his 21st year, is released from his apprenticeship to a band of tender-hearted pirates. He meets Mabel, the daughter of Major-General Stanley, and the two people fall instantly in love. Frederic soon learns, however, that he was born on the 29th of February and his indenture specifies that he remain apprenticed to the pirates until his twenty-first birthday, meaning that he must serve for another 63 years. Bound by his own sense of duty, Frederics only solace is that Mabel agrees to wait for him faithfully, Pirates was the fifth Gilbert and Sullivan collaboration and introduced the much-parodied Major-Generals Song. The opera was performed for over a century by the DOyly Carte Opera Company in Britain and by other opera companies. Pirates remains popular today, taking its place along with The Mikado, Pinafore as one of the most frequently played Gilbert and Sullivan operas. The Pirates of Penzance was the only Gilbert and Sullivan opera to have its premiere in the United States. At the time, American law offered no protection to foreigners. After the pairs previous opera, H. M. S, however, Gilbert, Sullivan, and their producer, Richard DOyly Carte, failed in their efforts, over the next decade, to control the American performance copyrights to Pirates and their other operas. Fiction and plays about pirates were ubiquitous in the 19th century, walter Scotts The Pirate and James Fenimore Coopers The Red Rover were key sources for the romanticised, dashing pirate image and the idea of repentant pirates. Both Gilbert and Sullivan had parodied these ideas early in their careers, Sullivan had written a comic opera called The Contrabandista, in 1867, about a hapless British tourist who is captured by bandits and forced to become their chief. Gilbert had written several works that involved pirates or bandits. In Gilberts 1876 opera Princess Toto, the character is eager to be captured by a brigand chief. Gilbert had translated Jacques Offenbachs operetta Les brigands, in 1871, as in Les brigands, The Pirates of Penzance absurdly treats stealing as a professional career path, with apprentices and tools of the trade such as the crowbar and life preserver. While Pinafore was running strongly at the Opera Comique in London, Gilbert was eager to get started on his and Sullivans next opera and he re-used several elements of his 1870 one-act piece, Our Island Home, which had introduced a pirate chief, Captain Bang. Bang was mistakenly apprenticed to a band as a child by his deaf nursemaid
10.
Private Lives
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Private Lives is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It concerns a couple who, while honeymooning with their new spouses. Despite a perpetually stormy relationship, they realise that they still have feelings for each other and its second act love scene was nearly censored in Britain as too risqué. Coward wrote one of his most popular songs, Some Day Ill Find You, after touring the British provinces, the play opened the new Phoenix Theatre in London in 1930, starring Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, Adrianne Allen and Laurence Olivier. A Broadway production followed in 1931, and the play has been revived at least a dozen times each in the West End. Directors of new productions have included John Gielgud, Howard Davies, the play was made into a 1931 film and has been adapted several times for television and radio. Coward was in the middle of an extensive Asian tour when he contracted influenza in Shanghai and he spent the better part of his two-week convalescence sketching out the play and then completed the actual writing of the piece in only four days. He immediately cabled Gertrude Lawrence in New York to ask her to keep autumn 1930 free to appear in the play. After spending a few more weeks revising it, he typed the final draft in the Peninsula Hotel in Kowloon and sent copies to Lawrence and his producer and manager, wilson, with instructions to cable him with their reactions. Coward received no fewer than 30 telegrams from Lawrence about the play and she first said that she had read the play and there was nothing wrong with it that cant be fixed. Coward wired back curtly that the thing that was going to be fixed was her performance. Lawrence was indecisive about what to do about her previous commitment to André Charlot, Coward finally responded that he planned to cast the play with another actress. By the time he returned to London, he found Lawrence not only had cleared her schedule but was staying at Edward Molyneuxs villa in Cap-dAil in southeastern France learning her lines, Coward joined her, and the two began rehearsing the scenes they shared. At the end of July they returned to London where Coward began to direct the production, Coward played the part of Elyot Chase himself, Adrianne Allen was his bride Sybil, Lawrence played Amanda Prynne, and Laurence Olivier was her new husband Victor. Coward wrote Sybil and Victor as minor characters, extra puppets, lightly wooden ninepins, only to be knocked down. Rehearsals were still under way when the Lord Chamberlain took exception to the second act love scene, the play contains one of Cowards most popular songs, Some Day Ill Find You. The Noël Coward Societys website, drawing on performing statistics from the publishers, act 1 Following a brief courtship, Elyot and Sybil are honeymooning at an hotel in Deauville, although her curiosity about his first marriage is not helping his romantic mood. In the adjoining suite, Amanda and Victor are starting their new life together, Elyot and Amanda separately beg their new spouses to leave the hotel with them immediately, but both new spouses refuse to co-operate and each storms off to dine alone
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