1.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
Geographic coordinate system
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Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.
2.
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
New York City
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Clockwise, from top:
Midtown Manhattan,
Times Square, the
Unisphere in
Queens, the
Brooklyn Bridge,
Lower Manhattan with
One World Trade Center,
Central Park, the
headquarters of the United Nations, and the
Statue of Liberty
New York City
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New Amsterdam, centered in the eventual
Lower Manhattan, in 1664, the year
England took control and renamed it "New York".
New York City
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The
Battle of Long Island, the largest battle of the
American Revolution, took place in
Brooklyn in 1776.
New York City
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Broadway follows the Native American Wickquasgeck Trail through Manhattan.
3.
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
United States
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Native Americans meeting with Europeans, 1764
United States
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Flag
United States
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The signing of the
Mayflower Compact, 1620.
United States
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The
Declaration of Independence: the
Committee of Five presenting their draft to the
Second Continental Congress in 1776
4.
Seating capacity
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Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available, and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that seats two to a stadium that seats hundreds of thousands of people. The International Fire Code, portions of which have adopted by many jurisdictions, is directed more towards the use of a facility than the construction. It specifies, For areas having fixed seating without dividing arms and it also requires that every public venue submit a detailed site plan to the local fire code official, including details of the means of egress, seating capacity, arrangement of the seating. Once safety considerations have been satisfied, determinations of seating capacity turn on the size of the venue. For sports venues, the decision on maximum seating capacity is determined by several factors, chief among these are the primary sports program and the size of the market area. Seating capacity of venues also plays a role in what media they are able to provide, in contracting to permit performers to use a theatre or other performing space, the seating capacity of the performance facility must be disclosed. Seating capacity may influence the kind of contract to be used, the seating capacity must also be disclosed to the copyright owner in seeking a license for the copyrighted work to be performed in that venue. Venues that may be leased for private functions such as ballrooms and auditoriums generally advertise their seating capacity, seating capacity is also an important consideration in the construction and use of sports venues such as stadiums and arenas. The seating capacity for restaurants is reported as covers, a restaurant that can seat 99 is said to have 99 covers, seating capacity differs from total capacity, which describes the total number of people who can fit in a venue or in a vehicle either sitting or standing. Use of the term public capacity indicates that a venue is allowed to more people than it can actually seat. Again, the total number of people can refer to either the physical space available or limitations set by law
Seating capacity
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The
Indianapolis Motor Speedway has the largest seating capacity of any venue in the world.
Seating capacity
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An aerial view of the
Melbourne Cricket Ground during the 1992
Cricket World Cup final packed with 90,000 people.
5.
Joseph Papp
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Joseph Joe Papp was an American theatrical producer and director. Papp established The Public Theater in what had been the Astor Library Building in downtown New York, there, Papp created a year-round producing home to focus on new creations, both plays and musicals. Papp was born Joseph Papirofsky in Brooklyn, New York, New York, the son of Yetta, a seamstress, and Samuel Papirofsky and his parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia. He was a school student of Harlem Renaissance playwright Eulalie Spence. Papp founded the New York Shakespeare Festival in 1954, with the aim of making Shakespeares works accessible to the public, in 1957, he was granted the use of Central Park for free productions of Shakespeares plays. This legacy of Papp has continued at the open-air Delacorte Theatre every summer in Central Park, Papp spent years of entrepreneurial zeal and dogged persistence promoting his idea of free Shakespeare in New York City. Actress Colleen Dewhurst, who played Kate the shrew, recalled the beginning of the shift in fortune, With Brooks Atkinsons blessing, suddenly in our audience of neighbors in T-shirts and jeans appeared men in white shirts, jackets and ties, and ladies in summer dresses. Suddenly we were the play to see, and everything changed and we were in a hit that would have a positive effect on my career, as well as Joes, but I missed the shouting. I missed the feeling of not knowing what might happen next or how that play would that night move an audience unafraid of talking back, after looking at other locations, he fell in love with the location and the character of Lafayette Street’s Astor Library. Papp got it, in 1967, at a one dollar yearly rental from the City. It was the first building saved from demolition under the New York City landmarks preservation law, after massive renovations, Papp moved his staff to the newly named Public Theater, hoping to attract a newer, less conventional audience to new and innovative playwrights. At the Public Theater, Papps focus moved away from the Shakespearean classics, notable Public Theater productions included Charles Gordone’s No Place to Be Somebody and the plays of David Rabe, Tom Babe, and Jason Miller. Papp called his productions of Rabes plays the most important thing I did at the Public, Papp managed to produce plays that spoke to their own time. As festival designer Ming Cho Lee put it, “With the new playwrights, Joe changed direction and none of us realized for a while that he had changed direction. The Public Theater became more important than the Delacorte, the new playwrights became more interesting to Joe than Shakespeare. A Chorus Line originated with a series of taped interviews of dancers reminiscences, down at the Public, Papp had given Bennett the kind of entrepreneurial support for which he was known, trusting Bennett with the time and space to flesh out his dream. Previously, Papp had not kept his producers hands on the rights to Hair, after this ground-breaking musical transferred to a highly lucrative Broadway run, the shows earnings became a continuous financial support for Papps work. The show received 12 Tony Award nominations and won nine of them and it ran for 6,137 performances, becoming the longest-running production in Broadway history up to that time
Joseph Papp
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The Joseph Papp Public Theater
Joseph Papp
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The
Delacorte Theater where Shakespeare in the Park is performed
Joseph Papp
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The
Golden Theatre,
Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre,
Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, and
Booth Theatre on
West 45th Street in
Manhattan's Theatre District
6.
Hair (musical)
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Hair, The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni and music by Galt MacDermot. A product of the counterculture and sexual revolution of the late 1960s. The musicals profanity, its depiction of the use of drugs, its treatment of sexuality, its irreverence for the American flag. The musical broke new ground in musical theatre by defining the genre of musical, using a racially integrated cast. Simultaneous productions in cities across the United States and Europe followed shortly thereafter, since then, numerous productions have been staged around the world, spawning dozens of recordings of the musical, including the 3 million-selling original Broadway cast recording. Some of the songs from its score became Top 10 hits, a Broadway revival opened in 2009, earning strong reviews and winning the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for best revival of a musical. In 2008, Time magazine wrote, Today Hair seems, if anything, Hair was conceived by actors James Rado and Gerome Ragni. The two met in 1964 when they performed together in the Off-Broadway flop Hang Down Your Head and Die, the main characters were autobiographical, with Rados Claude being a pensive romantic and Ragnis Berger an extrovert. Their close relationship, including its volatility, was reflected in the musical, Rado explained, We were great friends. It was a kind of relationship that we directed into creativity, into writing. We put the drama between us on stage, Rado described the inspiration for Hair as a combination of some characters we met in the streets, people we knew and our own imaginations. He recalled, There was so much excitement in the streets and the parks and the hippie areas and we hung out with them and went to their Be-Ins let our hair grow. Many cast members were recruited right off the street, Rado said, It was very important historically, and if we hadnt written it, thered not be any examples. You could read about it and see film clips, but youd never experience it and we thought, This is happening in the streets, and we wanted to bring it to the stage. Rado and Ragni came from different artistic backgrounds, in college, Rado wrote musical revues and aspired to be a Broadway composer in the Rodgers and Hammerstein tradition. He went on to acting with Lee Strasberg. Ragni, on the hand, was an active member of The Open Theater, one of several groups, mostly Off-off Broadway. He introduced Rado to the theatre styles and methods being developed at The Open Theater
Hair (musical)
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Original Broadway poster
Hair (musical)
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Poster from The Cheetah with the
Native American theme
Hair (musical)
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London programme
Hair (musical)
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1979 movie poster.
7.
Lafayette Street (Manhattan)
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Lafayette Street is a major north-south street in New York Citys Lower Manhattan. It originates at the intersection of Reade Street and Centre Street, the one-way street then successively runs through Chinatown, Little Italy, NoLIta, and NoHo and finally, between East 9th and East 10th Streets, merges with Fourth Avenue. A buffered bike lane runs outside of the traffic lane. North of Spring Street, Lafayette Street is northbound -only, south of Spring Street, the street is named after the Marquis de Lafayette, a French hero of the American Revolutionary War. Lots along both sides of the new street sold briskly, earning Astor many times what he had paid for the two decades before. At that time its route was carved from the former Elm Street, Marion Street, schermerhorns moved uptown to 49 West 23rd Street. Before long, half of Colonnade Row was demolished to make way for a warehouse for Wanamakers Department Store, the main store burnt down in 1956, but the annex and warehouse buildings remain extant on Lafayette. This program was renewed in 2009 for the dates of August 8,15, and 22,2009 from 7,00 AM to 1,00 PM, as of 2013, it takes place on the first, second, and third Saturdays of every August. The New York City Subways 46 <6> B D F M trains intersect at a station complex at Bleecker Street / Broadway – Lafayette Street. The IRT Lexington Avenue Line runs under Lafayette Street, with stops at Canal Street, Spring Street, Bleecker Street, NoHo Historic District Designation Report, New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, p. 6–7 Lafayette Street Storefronts – photographs of buildings and stores along Lafayette Street
Lafayette Street (Manhattan)
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The
Public Theater, formerly the
Astor Library
Lafayette Street (Manhattan)
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Colonnade Row (1832)
Lafayette Street (Manhattan)
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Commercial Romanesque: the Schermerhorn Building (
Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, 1888) at 3rd Street
Lafayette Street (Manhattan)
–
The firehouse at 87 Lafayette at White Street (
Napoleon LeBrun, 1896) is now the
Downtown Community Television Center
8.
Astor Library
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It was primarily meant as a research library, and its books did not circulate. It opened to the public in 1854, and in 1895 consolidated with the Lenox Library, during this time, its building was expanded twice, in 1859 and 1881. In 1837, ill health had obligated Joseph Cogswell to abandon his career and enter the family of Samuel Ward. Three of Wards sons had been pupils at Round Hill School which Cogswell had administered, Ward introduced Cogswell to John Jacob Astor, who by then was in his 70s and had been retired for about 10 years. As the richest citizen of the United States, German-born Astor was considering what sort of testimonial he should leave to his adopted country. Early in January 1838, Astor consulted Cogswell about the use of some $300, 000–$400,000, Cogswell urged him to use it for a library, which Astor agreed to. A public announcement of Astors plan for the establishment of a public library appeared in New York in July 1838, at that point, the sum named was $350,000, and included a lot of land for the necessary building. Cogswell developed such a strategy, and Astor assented to it on the condition that Cogswell be in charge of buying books, the necessary detail extended to a catalog that must necessarily belong to the collection. By May 1839, Astor had set aside a sum of $400,000 for a public library. For books, $120,000 was allocated, and trustees were to be Washington Irving, Astor, Daniel Lord, Jr. James G. King, Joseph G. Cogswell, Fitz-Greene Halleck, Henry Brevoort, Jr. Samuel B. Ruggles, Samuel Ward, Jr. and the Mayor of New York City, in December 1842, $75,000 was fixed as the amount to be expended for the building, and Charles Astor Bristed was added to the list of trustees. By November 1840, Samuel Ward had died, and Cogswell began residing with Astor, sometimes he had a downtown office at his disposal. Thus matters stood until Astors death in 1848, Cogswell lived with or near Astor, the first meeting of the trustees came on May 20,1848. Cogswell was appointed superintendent of the library, with authority to convene the trustees, the name of “The Astor Library” was chosen for the institution at the second meeting on June 1. On September 28, a location was finalized for the building, what is now the East Village, there it was judged to be tranquil enough to be suitable for study. The lot was valued at $25,000, which sum was deducted from the $400,000 of the endowment, in January 1849 the library was incorporated and received a paragraph in the annual message of Governor Hamilton Fish. In April 1849, the trustees hired a house at 32 Bond Street for temporary custody and exhibition of the books they had purchased. The trustees stated that “all persons desirous of resorting to the library and of examining books, may do so all the convenience which it is in the power of the trustees to afford. ”At this time
Astor Library
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The Astor Library building in 1854
Astor Library
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John Jacob Astor, an engraving based on an 1864 portrait by Alonzo Chappell
Astor Library
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John Jacob Astor, a marble bust owned by the NYPL
Astor Library
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Joseph Cogswell, an 1853 bust by
Eugène Lequesne owned by the NYPL
9.
Lower Manhattan
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Lower Manhattan is defined most commonly as the area delineated on the north by 14th Street, on the west by the Hudson River, on the east by the East River, and on the south by New York Harbor. The Lower Manhattan business district forms the core of the area below Chambers Street and it includes the Financial District and the World Trade Center site. At the islands southern tip is Battery Park, City Hall is just to the north of the Financial District, also south of Chambers Street are the planned community of Battery Park City and the South Street Seaport historic area. The neighborhood of TriBeCa straddles Chambers on the west side, at the streets east end is the giant Manhattan Municipal Building, North of Chambers Street and the Brooklyn Bridge and south of Canal Street lies most of New Yorks oldest Chinatown neighborhood. Many court buildings and other government offices are located in this area. The Lower East Side neighborhood straddles Canal, North of Canal Street and south of 14th Street are the neighborhoods of SoHo, the Meatpacking District, the West Village, Greenwich Village, Little Italy, Nolita, and the East Village. Between 14th and 23rd streets are lower Chelsea, Union Square, the Flatiron District, Gramercy, the area that would eventually encompass modern day New York City was inhabited by the Lenape people. These groups of culturally and linguistically identical Native Americans traditionally spoke an Algonquian language now referred to as Unami, European settlement began with the founding of a Dutch fur trading post in Lower Manhattan, later called New Amsterdam in 1626. The first fort was built at the Battery to protect New Netherland, soon thereafter, most likely in 1626, construction of Fort Amsterdam began. Later, the Dutch West Indies Company imported African slaves to serve as laborers, they helped to build the wall that defended the town against English, early directors included Willem Verhulst and Peter Minuit. Willem Kieft became director in 1638 but five years later was embroiled in Kiefts War against the Native Americans, the Pavonia Massacre, across the Hudson River in present-day Jersey City resulted in the death of 80 natives in February 1643. Following the massacre, Algonquian tribes joined forces and nearly defeated the Dutch, the Dutch Republic sent additional forces to the aid of Kieft, leading to the overwhelming defeat of the Native Americans and a peace treaty on August 29,1645. On May 27,1647, Peter Stuyvesant was inaugurated as director general upon his arrival, the colony was granted self-government in 1652, and New Amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city on February 2,1653. The first mayors of New Amsterdam, Arent van Hattem and Martin Cregier, were appointed in that year, in 1664, the English conquered the area and renamed it New York after the Duke of York. At that time, people of African descent made up 20% of the population of the city, with European settlers numbering approximately 1,500, during the mid 1600s, farms of free blacks covered 130 acres where Washington Square Park later developed. The Dutch briefly regained the city in 1673, renaming the city New Orange, the new English rulers of the formerly Dutch New Amsterdam and New Netherland renamed the settlement New York. As the colony grew and prospered, sentiment also grew for greater autonomy, by 1700, the Lenape population of New York had diminished to 200. By 1703, 42% of households in New York had slaves, the 1735 libel trial of John Peter Zenger in the city was a seminal influence on freedom of the press in North America
Lower Manhattan
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Lower Manhattan viewed from
Brooklyn in September 2014
Lower Manhattan
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The Lower Manhattan skyline in December 2011, from
Midtown Manhattan.
One World Trade Center can be seen, under construction, in the background.
Lower Manhattan
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The Lower Manhattan skyline in May 2001, seen from the
Empire State Building
Lower Manhattan
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View of Lower Manhattan at sunset, from
Jersey City, New Jersey.
One World Trade Center is the tallest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere.
10.
Delacorte Theater
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The Delacorte Theater is a 1, 800-seat open-air theater located in Central Park, in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is home to the Public Theaters free Shakespeare in the Park productions, over five million people have attended more than 150 free productions of Shakespeare and other classical works and musicals at the Delacorte Theater since its opening in 1962. The theater is named in honor of Valerie and George T. Delacorte, Jr. Papp had started seeking funds in 1958 for a permanent outdoor amphitheater in Central Park, Papp believed theater was essential for all to experience, and that it should be free for all. These conceits, and Papps personal drive and determination, are what propelled Shakespeare in the Park into becoming one of New York Citys most treasured and beloved traditions, the first production, in 1962, was The Merchant of Venice starring George C. Scott and James Earl Jones. In 2010, Shakespeare in the Park featured repertory casting for the first time in decades, two shows, The Merchant of Venice and The Winters Tale, ran on an alternating basis over the course of the series and featured largely the same cast. The trend continued in the 2011 season, the 2011 season, featured Alls Well That Ends Well, directed by Daniel Sullivan, and Measure for Measure, directed by David Esbjornson, running in repertory on alternate evenings. The repertory cast featured John Cullum, Danai Gurira, Michael Hayden, Annie Parisse, Tonya Pinkins, Lorenzo Pisoni, martin, Jerry Stiller, Christopher Walken and others. The Public’s 2013 season began with The Comedy of Errors, directed by Dan Sullivan and featuring Shakespeare in the Park alumni Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Dromio and Hamish Linklater as Antipholus. Ferguson and Linklater last performed together in The Winter’s Tale and The Merchant of Venice in 2010 for The Public’s Shakespeare in the Park. The second show of the 2013 season is a new adaptation of Shakespeare’s Loves Labours Lost, directed by Alex Timbers with songs by Michael Friedman. 2014 featured Hamish Linklater, Lily Rabe and John Lithgow all in starring roles, Linklater and Rabe took on the witty love-match of Beatrice and Benedick in Shakespeares Much Ado About Nothing while Lithgow tackled the title role in Shakespeares King Lear. Tickets to Shakespeare in the Park are free and can only be obtained the day of a performance. At 12 noon tickets are distributed, two per person, at the Delacorte to the line of people that usually springs up early in the morning when the park opens at 6AM. People have been known to camp out at the park entrance closest to the theater, 81st & Central Park West, anyone 5 years old and older can obtain and are required to have a ticket should they wish to see the show. The 2013 Season features a new policy that one person can obtain two tickets for two performances of one production. In addition to the line which snakes through the park the Public also offers a few other options to get tickets. One being the line for Seniors which begins at the benches closest to the box office. The tickets provided to that line have easy access inside the theater and are available to persons 65
Delacorte Theater
–
The theater
11.
Central Park
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Central Park is an urban park in Manhattan, New York City. Central Park is the most visited park in the United States, with 40 million visitors in 2013. The park was established in 1857 on 778 acres of city-owned land, construction began the same year and the parks first area was opened to the public in the winter of 1858. Construction continued during the American Civil War farther north, and was expanded to its current size of 843 acres in 1873, Central Park was designated a National Historic Landmark by the U. S. Department of the Interior in 1962. The Conservancy is a organization that contributes 75 percent of Central Parks $65 million annual budget and is responsible for all basic care of the 843-acre park. Between 1821 and 1855, New York City nearly quadrupled in population, as the city expanded northward up Manhattan, people were drawn to the few existing open spaces, mainly cemeteries, to get away from the noise and chaotic life in the city. Since Central Park was not part of the original Commissioners Plan of 1811, John Randel, Jr. surveyed the grounds. The only remaining surveying bolt from his survey is still visible, it is embedded in a rock just north of the present Dairy and the 65th Street Transverse, the bolt marks the location where West 65th Street would have intersected Sixth Avenue. The state appointed a Central Park Commission to oversee the development of the park, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux developed what came to be known as the Greensward Plan, which was selected as the winning design. The Greensward Plan called for some 36 bridges, all designed by Vaux, ranging from rugged spans of Manhattan schist or granite, to lacy Neo-Gothic cast iron, several influences came together in the design. Landscaped cemeteries, such as Mount Auburn and Green-Wood had set examples of idyllic, naturalistic landscapes, the most influential innovations in the Central Park design were the separate circulation systems for pedestrians, horseback riders, and pleasure vehicles. The crosstown commercial traffic was entirely concealed in sunken roadways, screened with densely planted shrub belts so as to maintain a rustic ambiance, before the construction of the park could start, the area had to be cleared of its inhabitants. Most lived in villages, such as Harsenville, the Piggery District, or Seneca Village, or in the school. Approximately 1,600 residents were evicted under the rule of eminent domain during 1857, Seneca Village and parts of the other communities were razed to make room for the park. During the parks construction, Olmsted fought constant battles with the park commissioners, between 1860 and 1873, most of the major hurdles to construction were overcome and the park was substantially completed. The work was documented with technical drawings and photographs. More gunpowder was used to clear the area than was used at the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War, the parks commissioners assigned a name to each of the original 18 gates in 1862. The names were chosen to represent the diversity of New York Citys trades, for example, Mariners Gate for the entrance at 85th Street
Central Park
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The Pond and Hallett Nature Sanctuary in the park's southeast corner
Central Park
Central Park
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John Randel 's survey bolt, still visible in Central Park
Central Park
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One of 36 bridges in the park
12.
New York Shakespeare Festival
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Shakespeare in the Park is a theatrical program that stages productions of Shakespearean plays at an open theater in New York Citys Central Park. The theater and the productions are managed by the Public Theater, originally branded as the New York Shakespeare Festival under the direction of Joseph Papp, the institution was renamed in 2002 as part of a larger reorganization by the Public Theater. The festival was conceived by director-producer Joseph Papp in 1954. Papp began with a series of Shakespeare workshops, then moved on to free productions on the Lower East Side, eventually, the plays moved to a lawn in front of Turtle Pond in Central Park. In 1959, parks commissioner Robert Moses demanded that Papp and his charge a fee for the performances to cover the cost of grass erosion. Papp continued to fight Moses, winning his enduring respect and the quote well, following this, Moses requested funds from the city for the construction of an amphitheater in the park. In 1961, the Delacorte Theater was built, the first performance held in the theater in 1962 was Shakespeares The Merchant of Venice, starring George C. Scott and James Earl Jones. The Delacorte Theater is an amphitheater located on the southwest corner of the Great Lawn in Central Park, closest to the entrance at 81st Street. It was built in 1961 and named for George T. Delacorte, belvedere Castle and Turtle Pond provide a backdrop for the shows at the Delacorte. As shows at the Delacorte begin in the evening, shows usually start in daylight, as the play rolls on, the sun sets. Since 1962 the Public has had the privilege of its exclusive use, tickets to Shakespeare in the Park are free and can only be obtained the day of a performance. At 12 noon tickets are distributed, two per person, at the Delacorte to the line of people that usually springs up early in the morning when the park opens at 6 a. m. Anyone five years old and older can obtain and are required to have a ticket should they wish to see the show, the 2013 Season features a new policy that one person can only obtain two tickets for two performances of one production. In addition to the line which snakes through the park the Public also offers a few other options to get tickets. One being the line for Seniors which begins at the benches closest to the box office. The tickets provided to that line have easy access inside the theater and are available to persons 65. ID is required to obtain the tickets, in 2009 the Public introduced the Virtual Ticketing system which is an online drawing to win tickets to that days performance without waiting in line in person. On the day of a show, users can log on to shakespeareinthepark. org anytime between midnight and 11,59 a. m. to register for that evening’s performance
New York Shakespeare Festival
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The
Delacorte Theater where Shakespeare in the Park is operated.
New York Shakespeare Festival
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Awaiting tickets
13.
The Merchant of Venice
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The Merchant of Venice is a 16th century play by William Shakespeare in which a merchant in Venice must default on a large loan provided by an abused Jewish moneylender. It is believed to have written between 1596 and 1599. Also notable is Portias speech about the quality of mercy, critic Harold Bloom listed it among Shakespeares great comedies. Bassanio, a young Venetian of noble rank, wishes to woo the beautiful, having squandered his estate, he needs 3,000 ducats to subsidise his expenditures as a suitor. Bassanio approaches his friend Antonio, a merchant of Venice who has previously and repeatedly bailed him out. Antonio has already antagonized Shylock through his outspoken antisemitism, and because Antonios habit of lending money without interest forces Shylock to charge lower rates, Shylock is at first reluctant to grant the loan, citing abuse he has suffered at Antonios hand. He finally agrees to lend the sum to Bassanio without interest upon one condition, if Bassanio is unable to repay it at the specified date, Shylock may take a pound of Antonios flesh. Bassanio does not want Antonio to accept such a condition, Antonio is surprised by what he sees as the moneylenders generosity. With money at hand, Bassanio leaves for Belmont with his friend Gratiano, Gratiano is a likeable young man, but is often flippant, overly talkative, and tactless. Bassanio warns his companion to exercise self-control, and the two leave for Belmont, meanwhile, in Belmont, Portia is awash with suitors. Her father left a will stipulating each of her suitors must choose correctly from one of three caskets – one each of gold, silver and lead, if he picks the right casket, he gets Portia. The first suitor, the Prince of Morocco, chooses the gold casket, interpreting its slogan, Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire, as referring to Portia. The second suitor, the conceited Prince of Arragon, chooses the silver casket, both suitors leave empty-handed, having rejected the lead casket because of the baseness of its material and the uninviting nature of its slogan, Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath. The last suitor is Bassanio, whom Portia wishes to succeed, as Bassanio ponders his choice, members of Portias household sing a song which says that fancy is engendred in the eyes, With gazing fed, Bassanio chooses the lead casket and wins Portias hand. At Venice, Antonios ships are reported lost at sea so the merchant cannot repay the bond, Shylock has become more determined to exact revenge from Christians because his daughter Jessica eloped with the Christian Lorenzo and converted. She took an amount of Shylocks wealth with her, as well as a turquoise ring which Shylock had been given by his late wife. Shylock has Antonio brought before court, at Belmont, Bassanio receives a letter telling him that Antonio has been unable to repay the loan from Shylock. Portia and Bassanio marry, as do Gratiano and Portias handmaid Nerissa, Bassanio and Gratiano leave for Venice, with money from Portia, to save Antonios life by offering the money to Shylock
The Merchant of Venice
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Title page of the
first quarto of Merchant of Venice (1600)
The Merchant of Venice
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Gilbert's
Shylock After the Trial, an illustration to The Merchant of Venice.
The Merchant of Venice
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A depiction of Jessica, from The Graphic Gallery of Shakespeare's Heroines
The Merchant of Venice
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The title page from a 1565 printing of Florentino Giovanni's 14th century tale, Il Pecorino
14.
Al Pacino
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Alfredo James Al Pacino is an American actor of stage and screen, filmmaker, and screenwriter. DeMille Award, and the National Medal of Arts and he is also one of few performers to have won a competitive Oscar, an Emmy and a Tony Award for acting, dubbed the Triple Crown of Acting. He achieved international acclaim and recognition for his role as Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppolas The Godfather. He received his first Oscar nomination and would reprise the role in the successful sequels The Godfather Part II. Pacinos performance as Corleone is now regarded as one of the greatest screen performances in film history, for his performances in The Godfather, Dick Tracy and Glengarry Glen Ross, Pacino was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. A lifelong fan of Shakespeare, Pacino directed and starred in Looking for Richard, a film about the play Richard III. He has also acted as Shylock in a 2004 feature film adaptation, since 1994, Pacino has been the joint president of the Actors Studio with Ellen Burstyn and Harvey Keitel. Pacino was born in New York City, to Sicilian-American parents Salvatore Pacino and Rose and his mother moved to The Bronx to live with her parents, Kate and James Gerardi, who, coincidentally, had come from a town in Sicily named Corleone. His father, who was from San Fratello in the Province of Messina, moved to Covina, California, in his teen years Sonny, as he was known to his friends, aimed to become a baseball player, and was also nicknamed The Actor. Pacino went through Herman Ridder Junior High School, but in secondary school dropped out of many classes and he attended the High School of Performing Arts, but dropped out of school at age 17. His mother disagreed with his decision, they argued and he left home and he worked at low-paying jobs, messenger, busboy, janitor, and postal clerk, to finance his acting studies. He once worked in the room for Commentary magazine. He began smoking and drinking at age nine, and took up casual cannabis use at age 13 and his two closest friends died from drug abuse at the ages of 19 and 30. Growing up in The Bronx, he got into fights and was considered something of a troublemaker at school. He acted in basement plays in New Yorks theatrical underground but was rejected for the Actors Studio while a teenager, Pacino then joined the Herbert Berghof Studio, where he met acting teacher Charlie Laughton, who became his mentor and best friend. In this period, he was unemployed and homeless, and sometimes slept on the street, in theaters. In 1962, his mother died at the age of 43, the following year, Pacinos grandfather James Gerardi, one of the most influential people in his life, also died. After four years at HB Studio, Pacino successfully auditioned for the Actors Studio, the Actors Studio is a membership organization of professional actors, theatre directors and playwrights in the Hells Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City
Al Pacino
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Pacino in September 2004.
Al Pacino
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Al Pacino in
The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel (1971)
Al Pacino
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Al Pacino at the
1996 Cannes Film Festival.
Al Pacino
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Al Pacino at the
Rome Film Festival in 2008.
15.
David Byrne
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Byrne is a multi-instrumentalist and is known for his distinctive voice. Since then, Byrne has released his own recordings and worked with various media including film, photography, opera. He has received Oscar, Grammy, and Golden Globe awards and been inducted into the Rock, David Byrne was born 14 May 1952, in Dumbarton, Scotland, to parents Tom and Emma. He is the elder of two children, two years after his birth, his parents moved to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and then to Arbutus, Maryland, in the United States, when he was 8 or 9 years old. His father worked as an electronics engineer, before high school, Byrne already knew how to play the guitar, accordion, and violin. He was rejected from his schools choir because they claimed he was off-key. From a young age, he had a strong interest in music and his parents say that he would constantly play his phonograph from age three and he learned how to play the harmonica at age five. In his journals he says, I was a peculiar young man—borderline Aspergers, Byrne graduated from Lansdowne High School in southwest Baltimore County. He started his career in a high school band called Revelation. Their repertoire consisted mostly of songs such as April Showers,96 Tears, Dancing on the Ceiling, Byrne attended the Rhode Island School of Design and the Maryland Institute College of Art before dropping out. He returned to Providence in 1973 and formed a band called the Artistics with fellow RISD student Chris Frantz, Byrne moved to New York City in May that year and was joined by Frantz and his girlfriend Tina Weymouth in September. Unable to find a player in New York, Frantz. While working day jobs in late 1974, they were contemplating a band, by January 1975, they were practicing and playing together, while still working normal day jobs. They founded the band Talking Heads and had their first gig in June, Byrne quit his day job in May 1976 and the three-piece band signed to Sire Records in November. Multi-instrumentalist Jerry Harrison joined the band in 1977, the band released eight studio albums before going into hiatus in 1988. Byrne desired to go solo, but it took three years until 1991 to announce that the band was breaking up, a brief reunion for a single Sax and Violins in 1991 occurred before dissolving again. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, following this record, Byrne focused his attention on Talking Heads. My Life in the Bush of Ghosts was re-released for its 25th anniversary in early 2006, in keeping with the spirit of the original album, stems for two of the songs component tracks were released under Creative Commons licenses and a remix contest site was launched
David Byrne
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Byrne speaking at the 2006 Future of Music Policy Summit hosted by the
McGill University Schulich School of Music in
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
David Byrne
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As part of
Talking Heads in 1978
David Byrne
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Byrne at London's
Royal Festival Hall in April 2009
David Byrne
–
Byrne playing,
Austin City Limits, 2008
16.
Fun Home (musical)
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Fun Home is a musical adapted by Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori from Alison Bechdels 2006 graphic memoir of the same name. The story concerns Bechdels discovery of her own sexuality, her relationship with her gay father and it is the first Broadway musical with a lesbian protagonist. The musical was developed through several readings and performances, including at the Ojai Playwrights Conference in 2009 and at the Sundance Theatre Lab and it opened Off-Broadway at the Public Theater in September 2013 to positive reviews. Its run was extended several times, until January 2014, the Public Theater production of Fun Home was nominated for nine Lucille Lortel Awards, two Obie Awards and eight Drama Desk Awards, among others. The original Broadway production began previews at the Circle in the Square Theatre in March 2015 and it was nominated for twelve Tony Awards, winning five, including Best Musical, and its cast album received a nomination for the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. The production closed on September 10,2016, and a tour began in October 2016 that is booked until August 2017. Writer/artist Alison Bechdels book Fun Home, a memoir in comics format, was published in 2006 to critical acclaim and its subject is Alison Bechdels coming of age, with particular emphasis on her relationship to her father, Bruce Bechdel. Alisons coming out as a lesbian is complicated by the revelation that Bruce had also had homosexual relationships, four months after Alison comes out to her parents, Bruce is killed by an oncoming truck, although the evidence is equivocal, Alison concludes that he committed suicide. Bechdels book was adapted into a musical with book and lyrics by Lisa Kron, writing in Slate, June Thomas called the play the first mainstream musical about a young lesbian. The adaptation was developed over the course of five years and it was first workshopped at the Ojai Playwrights Conference in August 2009. A staged reading was performed at The Public Theater in 2011, the musical had another workshop as part of the Sundance Institutes Theater Lab in July 2012, featuring Raul Esparza. Following that it ran for three weeks as part of the Public Theaters Public Lab series in October and November 2012. On April 8,2013, musical selections from the play were performed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, Judy Kuhn, David Hyde Pierce, a final Public Theater workshop was held in May 2013. The musicals development process entailed extensive changes and rewrites, Beth Malone said that the original workshop script doesnt resemble this current play at all. Revisions continued through the period of the Off-Broadway production, requiring the actors to perform new material every night. Fun Home premiered Off-Broadway at The Public Theater in previews on September 30,2013, originally scheduled to run through November 3,2013, the run was extended several times, and the musical closed on January 12,2014. The production was directed by Sam Gold, with sets and costumes by David Zinn, lighting by Ben Stanton, projections by Jim Findlay and Jeff Sugg, Bechdel, Kron, Tesori and musical director Chris Fenwick accompanied the cast. The musical began previews at Broadways Circle in the Square Theatre on March 27,2015, Gold directed the show on Broadway, with the same production team as the Off-Broadway production, including Zinn, Mefford and Stanton
Fun Home (musical)
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Original Broadway Playbill
17.
Alison Bechdel
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Alison Bechdel is an American cartoonist. She is a 2014 recipient of the MacArthur Genius Award and she is also known for the Bechdel test. Alison J. Bechdel was born in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania and her father, an army veteran who was stationed in West Germany, was a high school English teacher full-time and operated a funeral home part-time. Her mother was an actress and teacher, both of her parents contributed to her career as a cartoonist. She has two brothers, Bruce Christian Bechdel II and John Bechdel, a player who has worked with many bands including Fear Factory, Ministry. She left high school a year early to attend Simons Rock College from 1977–1979, Bechdel eventually transferred to Oberlin College, graduating with a degree in studio arts and art history in 1981. Bechdel moved to Manhattan and applied to art schools but was rejected and worked in a number of office jobs in the publishing industry. She began Dykes to Watch Out For as a single drawing labeled Marianne, dissatisfied with the morning brew, Dykes to Watch Out For, an acquaintance recommended she send her work to WomaNews, a feminist newspaper, which published her first work in its June 1983 issue. Bechdel gradually moved from her early drawings to multi-paneled strips. Dykes to Watch Out For began this process, developing into a series of posters and postcards, after a year, other outlets began running the strip. In the first years, Dykes to Watch Out For consisted of unconnected strips without a regular cast or serialized storyline, however, its structure eventually evolved into a focus on following a set group of lesbian characters. In 1986, Firebrand Books published a collection of the strips to date, in 1987, Bechdel introduced her regular characters, Mo and her friends, while living in St. Paul, Minnesota. Dykes to Watch Out For is the origin of the Bechdel test, in 1988, she began a short-lived page-length strip about the staff of a queer newspaper, titled Servants to the Cause, for The Advocate. Bechdel has also written and drawn autobiographical strips and has done illustrations for magazines and websites and she became a full-time cartoonist in 1990 and later moved near Burlington, Vermont. She currently resides in Bolton, Vermont, in November 2006, Bechdel was invited to sit on the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary. Stonewall Book Awards – Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award in 2007, the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from Publishing Triangle in 2012. The International Forum for Psychoanalytic Education Distinguished Educator Award in 2013 Lambda Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Literature in 2014, the Erikson Institute Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media in 2015. For her outstanding contributions to the art form, Comics Alliance listed Bechdel as one of twelve women cartoonists deserving of lifetime achievement recognition
Alison Bechdel
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Alison Bechdel at
Politics and Prose for a book signing in May 2012.
Alison Bechdel
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Alison Bechdel at a London signing for
Fun Home in 2006
Alison Bechdel
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Bechdel in 2014, drawing
18.
Danai Gurira
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Gurira was born in Grinnell, Iowa, to Josephine Gurira, a university librarian, and Roger Gurira, a lecturer in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin–Platteville. Her parents came to the United States from Southern Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe and she is the youngest of four siblings, Shingai and Choni are her sisters and Tare, her brother, is a chiropractor. Gurira lived in Grinnell until December 1983, when at age five she and her family moved back to Harare and she attended high school at Dominican Convent High School. Afterwards, she returned to the United States to study at Macalester College, in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Gurira also earned a Master of Fine Arts in acting, from New York Universitys Tisch School of the Arts. Gurira said that she began writing plays in an effort to utilize her strengths as an actor. As a playwright, she has been commissioned by Yale Repertory Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Playwrights Horizons, and the Royal Court. She co-wrote and co-starred in the off-Broadway play In the Continuum, which won her an Obie Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award, in December 2011, In the Continuum commemorated World AIDS Day 2011. The play, sponsored by the U. S. Embassy in Zimbabwe, was performed at Harare’s Theatre, in 2009, Gurira made her acting debut on Broadway in August Wilsons play Joe Turners Come and Gone playing Martha Pentecost. Gurira received the Whiting Award for a playwright in 2012. In January 2015, Familiar, a written by Gurira and directed by Rebecca Taichman. It later premiered Off-Broadway in New York at Playwrights Horizons, the play is about family, cultural identity, and the experience of life as a first-generation American, and Gurira has said that it was inspired in part by family and friends of hers. In 2015, Lupita Nyongo starred in Guriras 2009 play, Eclipsed and it was announced the play would move to Broadway in 2016 at the John Golden Theatre. It was the first play to premiere on Broadway with an all female and black cast, the play is set in war-torn Liberia and focuses on three women who are living as sex slaves to a rebel commander, and is about how they deal with this difficult situation. The play was inspired by a photograph of female fighters and their tale of survival and it stars Saycon Sengbloh, Akosua Busia, Lupita Nyongo, Zainab Jah and Pascale Armand and is directed by Liesl Tommy. Eclipsed was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play, Gurira starred in the 2007 film The Visitor, for which she won Method Fest Independent Film Festival Award for Best Supporting Actress. She has appeared in the films Ghost Town,3 Backyards, My Soul to Take, and Restless City, as well the television shows Law & Order, Criminal Intent, Life on Mars, from 2010 to 2011, she appeared in the HBO drama series Treme. In 2013, Gurira played a role in director Andrew Dosunmus independent drama film Mother of George. Gurira received critical acclaim for her performance as a Nigerian woman struggling to live in the United States, in June 2013, Gurira won the Jean-Claude Gahd Dam award at the 2013 Guys Choice Awards
Danai Gurira
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Danai Gurira at the 2015
San Diego Comic Con
Danai Gurira
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Gurira at the 2013 The Walking Dead event.
19.
Hamilton (musical)
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Hamilton, An American Musical is a sung-through musical about the life of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, with music, lyrics and book by Lin-Manuel Miranda. The show, inspired by the 2004 biography Alexander Hamilton by historian Ron Chernow, the musical made its Off-Broadway debut at The Public Theater in February 2015, where its engagement was sold out. The show transferred to Broadway in August 2015 at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, on Broadway, it received enthusiastic critical reception and unprecedented advance box office sales. The prior off-Broadway production of Hamilton won the 2015 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical as well as seven other Drama Desk Awards out of 14 total nominated categories, the Chicago production of Hamilton opened at the PrivateBank Theatre in September 2016. The first U. S. national tour of the show began performances in March 2017, a production of Hamilton will open in the West End in November 2017 at the Victoria Palace Theatre. A second U. S. tour is set to begin performances in early 2018. Upon Mirandas discovery he began a project entitled The Hamilton Mixtape, on May 12,2009, Miranda was invited to perform music from In the Heights at the White House Evening of Poetry, Music and the Spoken Word. Instead, he performed the first song from The Hamilton Mixtape and he spent a year after that working on My Shot, another early number from the show. Miranda performed in a production of the show, then titled The Hamilton Mixtape. The workshop production was directed by Thomas Kail and musically directed by Alex Lacamoire, the workshop consisted of the entirety of the first act of the show and three songs from the second act. The workshop was accompanied by Lacamoire on the piano, of the original workshop cast, only three principal cast members played in the Off-Broadway production, Miranda, Daveed Diggs, and Christopher Jackson. Most of the original Off-Broadway cast moved to Broadway, except Brian dArcy James, the musical begins with the company summarizing Alexander Hamiltons early life as an orphan in the Caribbean. Hamilton was born out of wedlock in the West Indies—his father abandoned him at an early age, by nineteen, Hamilton has made his way to the American colonies, a dedicated supporter of American independence. In the summer of 1776 in New York City, Hamilton seeks out Aaron Burr, Burr advises the overenthusiastic Hamilton to talk less, smile more. Hamilton is unable to understand why Burr would rather exercise caution than fight for his beliefs, Hamilton bonds with three fellow revolutionaries, abolitionist John Laurens, the flamboyant Frenchman Marquis de Lafayette, and the tailors apprentice Hercules Mulligan. Hamilton dazzles them with his skills and they dream of laying down their lives for their cause. Meanwhile, the wealthy Schuyler sisters—Angelica, Eliza, and Peggy—wander the streets of New York, samuel Seabury, a vocal Loyalist, preaches against the American Revolution, and Hamilton refutes and ridicules his statements. A message arrives from King George III, reminding the colonists that he is able, the revolution is underway, and Hamilton, Burr, and their friends join the Continental Army
Hamilton (musical)
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Playbill from the Original Broadway Production
20.
Lin-Manuel Miranda
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Lin-Manuel Miranda is an American actor and composer, best known for creating and starring in the Broadway musicals Hamilton and In the Heights. In addition to work, Miranda was heavily involved with Disneys Moana soundtrack. He has won a Pulitzer Prize, two Grammys, an Emmy, a MacArthur Fellowship, and three Tony Awards, among others, Miranda wrote the music and lyrics for the musical In the Heights, which opened on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in March 2008. Mirandas written work for the show earned him accolades, including the 2008 Tony Award for Best Original Score. Mirandas performance in the lead role of Usnavi also earned him a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical. Miranda also wrote the book, music, and lyrics for Hamilton, his second major Broadway musical, which was inspired by the 2004 biography Alexander Hamilton by historian Ron Chernow. The show earned the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the 2016 Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album, for his performance in the lead role of Alexander Hamilton in the show, Miranda received the 2016 Drama League Distinguished Performance Award as well as his second Tony performance nomination. Miranda also won the Tony Award for Best Original Score and Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for Hamilton, Miranda has one older sister, Luz, who is the CFO of the MirRam Group. He grew up in the Latino neighborhood of Inwood, but would spend a month every year in his grandparents home town, Vega Alta and he is of mostly Puerto Rican descent. The name Lin-Manuel was inspired by a poem about the Vietnam War, Nana Roja Para Mi Hijo Lin Manuel, growing up, Lin helped create jingles, including one used for Eliot Spitzers 2006 campaign. After graduating from Hunter College Elementary School and Hunter College High School, Miranda went on to attend Wesleyan University, during his time there, he co-founded a hip hop comedy troupe called Freestyle Love Supreme. He wrote the earliest draft of In the Heights in 1999, after the show was accepted by Second Stage, Wesleyans student theater company, Miranda worked on adding freestyle rap. and salsa numbers. It played from April 20 to 22,1999 and he wrote and directed several other musicals at Wesleyan. He also acted in other productions, ranging from musicals to Shakespeare. In 2002, Miranda and John Buffalo Mailer worked with director Thomas Kail and wrote five successive drafts of In the Heights, after success off-Broadway, the musical went to Broadway in 2008. It won the Tony Award for Best Musical and for Best Original Score, mirandas performance earned him a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical. Miranda made his last performance in the Broadway show on February 15,2009, Miranda reprised his role of Usnavi when the national tour of In the Heights played in Los Angeles from June 23 to July 25,2010. The tour continued without him at the helm until it played in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the Broadway production played its final performance on January 9,2011, after 29 previews and 1,185 regular performances
Lin-Manuel Miranda
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External video
Lin-Manuel Miranda
–
Miranda at the White House Evening of Poetry, Music, and the Spoken Word on May 12, 2009
21.
Tracey Scott Wilson
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Tracey Scott Wilson is an American playwright and TV writer whose works have been produced nationally and internationally. She graduated from Rutgers University in 1989 with a BA in English, born October 2,1966, in Newark, New Jersey, Wilson began writing fiction after graduating from Temple University. Finding herself unable to finish a novel, she decided to take a playwriting class, I didnt see much theater as a kid, so I had no expectations. It just took me over. Wilson soon realized that she had found her métier and wrote a number of short plays, at the encouragement of her mentor, playwright Chiori Miyagawa, Wilson applied for and won a New York Theatre Workshop fellowship in 1998. Wilson’s work has received readings at New York Theatre Workshop, Second Stage Theatre, The Public Theater, arnold Weissberger Award and the 2007 Time Warner Storytelling Fellowship. In 2009, she was the writer-in-residence at the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, on February 29,2014, the Joyce Foundation announced that Wilson was one of the recipients of its 2014 Joyce Awards. With her prize, Wilson will work intimately with a community in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Prep will debut at the Pillsbury House Theater during the theaters 2015 season. Wilsons first major Manhattan production was in 2003 with The Story at the Public Theater, the Good Negro was produced at The Public and then at the Goodman Theater in 2010. Wilsons Buzzer was produced as part of the Goodmans 2013-14 season and was added to the Public Theaters 2014-15 season in October 2014, the Story and The Good Negro have been published by Dramatists Play Service. She has taught and guest lectured at Brown University, Yale University, Rutgers University, Wilson is also a TV writer. Her episode of NBCs Do No Harm aired on August 18,2013, the Good Negro In hindsight the ultimate triumph of the civil rights movement seems inevitable, the bright sun of enlightenment inevitably burning through clouds of ignorance and injustice. Ms. Wilson reminds us how precarious it seemed at the time, as each day brought new evidence of fear and cruelty. Buzzer The effects of gentrification have oft been noted. Skyrocketing rents that force out longtime neighborhood dwellers and its one of a group of new plays pondering the souls and psyches of high-achieving black professionals. Its also part of a clutch of recent dramas that have explored race in terms of property. But Buzzer, which puts you in mind of Harold Pinters Betrayal, is not only far sexier and more entertaining than most such plays, it is anything but predictable or politically correct. Tracey Scott Wilson at the Internet Movie Database Profile at doollee. com Profile at The Whiting Foundation Civil Rights, mark Blankenship article of Wilson writing The Good Negro
Tracey Scott Wilson
–
Tracey Scott Wilson
22.
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
–
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is a rock musical with music and lyrics written by Michael Friedman, and a book by its director Alex Timbers. The show is a comedic historical rock musical about the founding of the Democratic Party and it redefines Andrew Jackson, Americas seventh President, as an Emo rock star and focuses on populism, the Indian Removal Act, and his relationship with his wife Rachel. The show opens when the cast, dressed as 19th-century American cowboys and they are led by Andrew Jackson. They sing about their eagerness to strip the English, Spanish, French, and, most importantly, along with this, they sing of the desire to bring political power back to the public and away from the elite. Jacksons childhood is shown in the Tennessee hills during the late 18th century and his family and the local shoe cobbler die of cholera and in Indian attacks. This leads him to join the military, where he is imprisoned by the British, Jackson begins to express his disdain for the US government’s lack of involvement with the people of the frontier and how he wishes someone would stand up to them. Jackson is then shown as an adult, regaling local tavern goers with his short meeting with George Washington. He is interrupted and attacked by several Spaniards, Jackson defeats them, but is injured in the process. A woman named Rachel helps him to recover from his injuries and they fall in love during his recovery and eventually marry, though Rachel is not yet divorced from her current husband. At the end of the song, news comes that British, Indian, meanwhile, the US government continues to do nothing to stop the attacks. Jackson realizes that if he wants this cycle to end, he must change things himself, Jackson organizes a militia to remove Indian Tribes throughout the Southeast both by force and negotiation. John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, John Calhoun, and Martin Van Buren are introduced as they express their concern over Jacksons unauthorized territorial expansion, Jackson rebuffs their pleas, explaining how he has driven out the French and the Spanish, while acquiring more land than Thomas Jefferson. The Battle of New Orleans transforms Jackson into a national hero and he becomes Governor of Florida and decides to run for United States President in 1824. Although he receives the most popular and Electoral votes, he is not elected President, Jackson spends the four years after the election at his home, The Hermitage. He returns from exile and forms the Democratic Party. During the presidential election of 1828, Andrew Jackson becomes a surprise candidate and this is grueling both publicly and personally to Jackson and his family. Rachel, feeling as if she has no life, questions Andrews love for her versus the American People. Days before the election, a Senate panel led by Clay investigates Jacksons past wrongdoings, despite this, Jackson ends up winning the election and becomes the 7th President of the United States
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
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Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
23.
Timon of Athens
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Timon of Athens is a play by William Shakespeare, published in the First Folio and probably written in collaboration with another author, most likely Thomas Middleton, in about 1605–1606. It is about the fortunes of an Athenian named Timon, the central character is a well beloved citizen of Athens who through tremendous generosity spends his entire fortunes on corrupt hangers-on only interested in getting the next payout. The earliest known production of the play was in 1674, when Thomas Shadwell wrote an adaptation under the title The History of Timon of Athens, multiple other adaptations followed over the next century, by writers such as Thomas Hull, James Love and Richard Cumberland. The straight Shakespearean text was at Smock Alley in Dublin in 1761, Timon of Athens was originally grouped with the tragedies, but some scholars name it one of the problem plays. In the beginning, Timon is a wealthy and generous Athenian gentleman and he hosts a large banquet, attended by nearly all the main characters. Timon gives away money wastefully, and everyone wants to him to get more, except for Apemantus. He accepts art from Poet and Painter, and a jewel from the Jeweller, Timons servant, Lucilius, has been wooing the daughter of an old Athenian. The man is angry, but Timon pays him three talents in exchange for the couple being allowed to marry, because the happiness of his servant is worth the price, Timon is told that his friend, Ventidius, is in debtors prison. He sends money to pay Ventidiuss debt, and Ventidius is released, Timon gives a speech on the value of friendship. The guests are entertained by a masque, followed by dancing, as the party winds down, Timon continues to give things away to his friends, his horses, and other possessions. The act is divided arbitrarily into two scenes but the experimental and/or unfinished nature of the play is reflected in that it does not naturally break into a five-act structure. Now Timon has given all his wealth. Shadowing Timon is another guest at the banquet, the cynical philosopher Apemantus and he was the only guest not angling for money or possessions from Timon. Along with a Fool, he attacks Timons creditors when they show up to make their demands for immediate payment, Timon cannot pay, and sends out his servants to make requests for help from those friends he considers closest. Timons servants are turned down, one by one, by Timons false friends, elsewhere, one of Alcibiadess junior officers has reached an even further point of rage, killing a man in hot blood. Alcibiades pleads with the Senate for mercy, arguing that a crime of passion should not carry as severe a sentence as premeditated murder, the senators disagree, and, when Alcibiades persists, banish him forever. He vows revenge, with the support of his troops, the act finishes with Timon discussing with his servants the revenge he will carry out at his next banquet. Timon hosts a party, intended only for those he feels have betrayed him
Timon of Athens
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Illustration from Tales from Shakespeare, McLoughlin Bros., 1890
Timon of Athens
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Timon renounces society (1803 engraving for Shakespeare, Timon of Athens, Act IV, Scene 1)
Timon of Athens
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The first page of Timon of Athens, printed in the Second Folio of 1632
Timon of Athens
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Drawing by
Johann Heinrich Ramberg of Timon and the gold: Act IV, Scene iii.
24.
Richard Thomas (actor)
–
Richard Earl Thomas is an American actor. From 2013 to 2016, he starred in the FX drama series The Americans, Thomas was born in Manhattan, the son of Barbara and Richard S. Thomas, in 1951. His parents were dancers with the New York City Ballet and owned the New York School of Ballet and he attended The Allen Stevenson School and the McBurney School in Manhattan. Thomas was seven when he made his Broadway debut in Sunrise at Campobello playing John Roosevelt, Thomas soon began his television career. In 1959, he appeared in the presentation of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House with Julie Harris, Christopher Plummer and he then began acting in daytime TV, appearing in soap operas such as The Edge of Night and As the World Turns, which were broadcast from his native Manhattan. Thomas received his first major roles, appearing in Winning with Paul Newman, about auto racing, and Last Summer with Bruce Davison and Barbara Hershey. In 1971 he starred in the Universal Pictures Hal Wallis Production Red Sky at Morning and he became nationally recognized for his portrayal of John “John-Boy” Walton, Jr. in the 1970s TV series The Waltons, which was based on the real life of writer Earl Hamner, Jr. He appeared in the 1971 pilot The Homecoming, and then played the role continuously in 122 episodes until March 17,1977, Thomas left the series and his role was taken over by Robert Wightman, but Thomas returned to the role in three Waltons TV movies, 1993–97. Thomas won an Emmy for Best Actor in a Dramatic Series in 1973 and he enrolled in Columbia College of Columbia University as a member of the class of 1973 but left after his junior year. In 1972, he played against type as murderer and rapist Kenneth Kinsolving in You’ll Like My Mother opposite Patty Duke. He played the roles of Private Henry Fleming in the 1974 TV movie The Red Badge of Courage. In 1980, Thomas made his first Broadway appearance in more than 12 years when he stepped in as a replacement in Lanford Wilson’s Fifth of July, in 1987, he appeared on stage in Philadelphia and Washington DC in the one-man tour-de-force Citizen Tom Paine. In 1993, he played the role in a stage production of Richard II. In 1981, his book of poetry Glass was published as a limited edition by Kenward Elmslies Z Press. In 1990, he played the version of main character Bill in the TV adaptation of Stephen Kings novel It. Thomas starred with Maureen O’Hara and Annette O’Toole in the Hallmark Channel movie, The Christmas Box, oToole and Thomas starred in It five years earlier as the adult Beverly Marsh and adult Bill Denbrough. Thomas has appeared in a quartet of performances at the Hartford Stage in Connecticut, Hamlet, Peer Gynt, Richard III, in 1997 and 1998, he appeared on Touched by an Angel. He has served as chairman of the Better Hearing Institute, hosted the PAX TV series It’s a Miracle
Richard Thomas (actor)
–
Thomas at the
Peabody Award, May 2015
Richard Thomas (actor)
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Thomas on the set of
The Waltons, 1973.
25.
Stephen Sondheim
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Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist known for more than a half-century of contributions to musical theatre. Sondheim has received an Academy Award, eight Tony Awards, eight Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, the Laurence Olivier Award, and he has been described by Frank Rich of The New York Times as now the greatest and perhaps best-known artist in the American musical theater. He also wrote the lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy, Sondheim has also written film music, contributing Goodbye for Now to Warren Beattys 1981 Reds. He wrote five songs for 1990s Dick Tracy, including Sooner or Later by Madonna, the composer was president of the Dramatists Guild from 1973 to 1981. To celebrate his 80th birthday, the former Henry Millers Theatre was renamed the Stephen Sondheim Theatre on September 15,2010, Cameron Mackintosh has called Sondheim possibly the greatest lyricist ever. Sondheim was born into a Jewish family in New York City and his father manufactured dresses designed by his mother. The composer grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and, after his parents divorced, on a farm near Doylestown, Pennsylvania. As the only child of parents living in the San Remo on Central Park West. When he lived in New York, Sondheim attended ECFS, the Ethical Culture Fieldston School known simply as Fieldston, Sondheim spent several summers at Camp Androscoggin. He traces his interest in theatre to Very Warm for May, the curtain went up and revealed a piano, Sondheim recalled. A butler took a duster and brushed it up, tinkling the keys, when Sondheim was ten, his father left his mother for another woman. Herbert sought custody of Stephen but was unsuccessful, Sondheim explained to biographer Secrest that he was what they call an institutionalized child, meaning one who has no contact with any kind of family. Youre in, though its luxurious, youre in an environment that supplies you with everything, No brothers and sisters, no parents, and yet plenty to eat, and friends to play with and a warm bed, you know. Sondheim detested his mother, who was said to be abusive and projected her anger from her failed marriage on her son, When my father left her. And she used me the way she used him, to come on to and to berate, beat up on, what she did for five years was treat me like dirt, but come on to me at the same time. She once wrote him a letter saying that the only ever had was giving him birth. When his mother died in the spring of 1992, Sondheim did not attend her funeral, when Sondheim was about ten years old, he became friends with James Hammerstein, son of lyricist and playwright Oscar Hammerstein II. The elder Hammerstein became Sondheims surrogate father, influencing him profoundly, Sondheim met Hal Prince, who would direct many of his shows, at the opening of South Pacific, Hammersteins musical with Richard Rodgers
Stephen Sondheim
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Sondheim circa 1976
Stephen Sondheim
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Hammerstein about 1940
Stephen Sondheim
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West Side Story original cast recording
26.
Tony Kushner
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Anthony Robert Tony Kushner is an American playwright and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1993 for his play Angels in America and he co-authored with Eric Roth the screenplay for the 2005 film Munich, and he wrote the screenplay for the 2012 film Lincoln. Both movies were critically acclaimed, and he received Academy Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay, for his work, he received a National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in 2013. Kushner was born in Manhattan, New York, the son of Sylvia, a bassoonist, and William David Kushner and his family is Jewish, descended from immigrants from Russia/Poland. Shortly after his birth, Kushners parents moved to Lake Charles, Louisiana, during high school Kushner was active in policy debate. In 1974, Kushner moved to New York to begin his college education at Columbia University. He attended the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, graduating in 1984, Kushners best known work is Angels in America, a seven-hour epic about the AIDS epidemic in Reagan-era New York, which was later adapted into an HBO miniseries for which Kushner wrote the screenplay. His other plays include Hydriotaphia, Slavs, thinking About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness, A Bright Room Called Day, Homebody/Kabul, and the book for the musical Caroline, or Change. His new translation of Bertolt Brechts Mother Courage and Her Children was performed at the Delacorte Theater in the summer of 2006, starring Meryl Streep, Kushner has also adapted Brechts The Good Person of Szechwan, Corneilles The Illusion, and S. Anskys play The Dybbuk. In the early 2000s, Kushner began writing for film and his co-written screenplay Munich was produced and directed by Steven Spielberg in 2005. In January 2006, a feature about Kushner entitled Wrestling With Angels debuted at the Sundance Film Festival. The film was directed by Freida Lee Mock, in a 2015 interview actress/producer Viola Davis revealed she had hired him to write an as yet untitled biopic about the life of Barbara Jordan that she planned to star in. In 2016, Kushner worked on August Wilsons screenplay for Fences, scheduled for release in December 2016, the film is directed by Denzel Washington. Kushner is famous for frequent revisions and years-long gestations of his plays, both Angels in America, Perestroika and Homebody/Kabul were significantly revised even after they were first published. Kushner has admitted that the script version of Angels in America. His newest completed work, the play The Intelligent Homosexuals Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures, said work finally opened on May 15,2009. The Zionist Organization of America unsuccessfully lobbied the university to rescind its invitation to Kushner, during the controversy, quotes critical of Zionism and Israel made by Kushner were circulated. Kushner said at the time that his quotes were grossly mischaracterized, in an interview with the Jewish Independent, Kushner commented, I want the state of Israel to continue to exist
Tony Kushner
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Kushner at San Francisco's Herbst Theatre, November 6, 2010
Tony Kushner
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Kushner protesting at
Columbia University in 1978
Tony Kushner
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Tony Kushner speaking at the University of Maryland, 2011.
Tony Kushner
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Kushner receiving a
National Medal of Arts from President
Barack Obama, 2013
27.
Arianna Huffington
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Arianna Huffington is a Greek American author, syndicated columnist, occasional actress, and businesswoman. Huffington was the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, which is now owned by AOL and she was a popular conservative commentator in the mid-1990s, after which, in the 1990s, she offered liberal points of view in public, while remaining involved in business endeavors. Her full name is rendered in English as Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington. She is the spouse of former Republican congressman Michael Huffington. Before she married Michael Huffington, her name was rendered in English as Stassinopoulos rather than Stassinopoulou. In 2003, she ran as an independent candidate for governor in the California recall election, in 2009, Huffington was #12 in Forbess first-ever list of the Most Influential Women In Media. She has also moved up to #42 in The Guardians Top 100 in Media List, as of 2014, she is listed by Forbes as the 52nd Most Powerful Woman in the World. On August 11,2016, it was announced that she would step down from her role at the Huffington Post to devote her time to a new startup, Thrive Global, focused on health and wellness information. Huffington was born Ariadnē-Anna Stasinopoúlou in Athens, Greece, the daughter of Konstantinos and Elli Stasinopoulou, and is the sister of Agapi. She moved to the United Kingdom at the age of 16 and studied economics at Girton College, Cambridge, where she was the first foreign, in 1971, Huffington appeared in an edition of Face the Music along with Bernard Levin. A relationship developed, of which she wrote, after his death, He wasnt just the big love of my life, he was a mentor as a writer, Huffington began writing books in the 1970s, with editorial help from Levin. The two traveled to music festivals around the world for the BBC and they spent summers patronizing three-star restaurants in France. At the age of 30, she remained deeply in love him but longed to have children. Huffington concluded that she had to break away and moved to New York in 1980, in 1979, Huffington joined Bob Langley as the co-host of BBC1s late night talk and entertainment show Saturday Night At The Mill, appearing in 12 editions before being dropped from the programme. In 1973, Arianna wrote a book titled The Female Woman, attacking the Womens Liberation movement in general, in 1979, Polydor Records released a solo album by Irene Papas entitled Odes, with music performed by Vangelis Papathanassiou. The words for the album were co-written by Arianna Stassinopoulos, in the late 1980s, Huffington wrote several articles for National Review. In 1981, she wrote a biography of Maria Callas, Maria Callas – The Woman Behind the Legend, and in 1989, Huffington rose to national U. S. prominence during the unsuccessful Senate bid in 1994 by her then husband, Michael Huffington, a Republican. She became known as a supporter of conservative causes such as Newt Gingrichs Republican Revolution
Arianna Huffington
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Huffington at the
2012 Time 100 gala
Arianna Huffington
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Campaigning for
Governor of California, 2003
28.
Alec Baldwin
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Alexander Rae Alec Baldwin III is an American actor, writer, producer, and comedian. A member of the Baldwin family, he is the oldest of the four Baldwin brothers, Baldwin first gained recognition appearing on seasons 6 and 7 of the CBS television drama Knots Landing, in the role of Joshua Rush. His performance in the 2003 romantic drama The Cooler garnered him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Baldwin co-starred in Mission, Impossible – Rogue Nation, the fifth installment of the Mission, Impossible series, released on July 31,2015. He is also a columnist for The Huffington Post, since 2016, he has been the host of Match Game. He has three brothers, Daniel, William, and Stephen, who also became actors. He also has two sisters, Beth and Jane, Alec and his siblings were raised as Roman Catholics. They are of English, Irish, Scottish, French-Canadian, Baldwin attended Alfred G. Berner High School in Massapequa and played football there under Coach Bob Reifsnyder. In New York City, Baldwin worked as a busboy at the disco Studio 54, from 1976 to 1979, he attended George Washington University, afterward transferring to New York Universitys Tisch School of the Arts. There he studied with, among others, Geoffrey Horne and Mira Rostova at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, Later, Baldwin made his Broadway debut in 1986 in a revival of Joe Ortons Loot alongside Zoë Wanamaker, Željko Ivanek, Joseph Maher, and Charles Keating. This production closed after three months, Baldwin also received an Emmy nomination for the 1995 television version of the production, in which both he and Jessica Lange reprised their roles, alongside John Goodman and Diane Lane. In 1998, Baldwin played the role in Macbeth at The Public Theater alongside Angela Bassett. In 2004, Baldwin starred in a revival of Twentieth Century with Anne Heche, on June 9,2005, he appeared in a concert version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific at Carnegie Hall. He starred as Luther Billis, alongside Reba McEntire as Nellie, the production was taped and telecast by PBS on April 26,2006. In 2006, Baldwin made theater news in Roundabout Theatre Companys Off-Broadway revival of Joe Ortons Entertaining Mr. Sloane. In 2010, Baldwin starred opposite Sam Underwood in an acclaimed revival of Peter Shaffers Equus, directed by Tony Walton at Guild Hall in East Hampton. Baldwin has returned to Broadway as Harold in Orphans, the show, which opened April 18,2013, was also to have starred Shia LaBeouf as Treat, but LaBoeuf left the production in rehearsals and was replaced by Ben Foster. Baldwins first acting role was as Billy Aldrich in the NBC daytime soap opera The Doctors from 1980 to 1982, in fall 1983, he starred in the short-lived television series Cutter to Houston. He went on to appear as the brother of Valene Ewing, in 1986, Baldwin starred in Dress Gray, a four-hour made-for-television miniseries, as an honest cadet sergeant who tries to solve the mystery of a murdered gay classmate
Alec Baldwin
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Baldwin in 2012
29.
Anne Hathaway
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Anne Jacqueline Hathaway is an American actress and singer. Hathaway went on to become a widely praised role model for children for her roles in Nicholas Nickleby, Ella Enchanted, The Princess Diaries 2, Royal Engagement, and Hoodwinked. In 2011, Hathaway voiced Jewel in the animated film Rio and hosted the 83rd Academy Awards with James Franco, in 2012, she portrayed Catwoman in Christopher Nolans The Dark Knight Rises, for which she won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. The same year, she starred as Fantine in Tom Hoopers Les Misérables, which earned her acclaim and she won the Academy, Golden Globe, BAFTA. Hathaway has since gone on to appear in Rio 2, Interstellar, The Intern, People magazine named Hathaway one of its breakthrough stars of 2001, and she appeared on its list of the worlds 50 Most Beautiful People in 2006. Following a four-year relationship with real estate developer Raffaello Follieri, Hathaway married Adam Shulman in 2012, with whom she has one son, Hathaway was born in Brooklyn, New York. Her father, Gerald Thomas Hathaway, is a lawyer, and her mother, Kathleen played Fantine in the first U. S. tour of Les Misérables. When Hathaway was six years old, her moved to Millburn, New Jersey. Hathaway is the middle of three children with her brother, Michael and younger brother, Thomas. Kathleen is of Irish descent, and Gerald is of Irish, French, English, at the age of fifteen, her relationship with the Catholic Church changed, after learning that Michael was gay. She said, I realized my older brother was gay, and I couldnt support a religion that didnt support my brother, now I call myself a non-denominational Christian, because I havent found the religion for me. In 2009, she stated that her religious beliefs are a work in progress, Hathaway attended Brooklyn Heights Montessori School and Wyoming Elementary School in Millburn. Later, she appeared in plays, including Jane Eyre and Gigi at New Jerseys Paper Mill Playhouse, Hathaway studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and was the first teenager admitted into The Barrow Group Theater Companys acting program. Between 1998 and 1999, she sang soprano with the All-Eastern U. S, high School Honors Chorus at Carnegie Hall and in plays at Seton Hall Preparatory School in West Orange, New Jersey. She is a stage actress and stated that she prefers performing from stage to film roles. Her acting style has been compared to those of Judy Garland and she cites Garland as one of her favorite actresses and Meryl Streep as her idol. At the age of sixteen, three days after her performance at Carnegie Hall, Hathaway was cast in the short-lived Fox television series Get Real. She made her film debut The Princess Diaries, which is based on Meg Cabots 2000 novel of the same name, Hathaway auditioned for the role of a princess-to-be during a flight layover on the way to New Zealand and was cast on the strength of this one audition
Anne Hathaway
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Hathaway in 2014
Anne Hathaway
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Hathaway at the
Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in 2008
Anne Hathaway
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Hathaway at the 2007
Deauville American Film Festival
Anne Hathaway
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Hathaway on the red carpet in 2009 at the
81st Academy Awards
30.
Belarus Free Theatre
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Belarus Free Theatre is a Belarusian underground theatre group. Under the current political system the Belarus Free Theatre has no registration, no premises. Rehearsals and performances are normally held secretly in private apartments, which, due to security. On several occasions, performances were given in street cafes and in the countryside, the group was established in March 2005 by human rights activists Nikolai Khalezin, playwright and journalist, and Natalia Koliada, a theatre producer and Khalezins wife. The theatre was meant to be a form of resisting the pressure. In May 2005 the team was joined by stage director Vladimir Shcherban, currently the theatre’s staff consists of ten professional actors, one professional dramatist, four managers and two technical assistants. The troupes first production was 4.48 Psychosis, by the late British playwright Sarah Kane, the premiere took place on May 28,2005 in one of Minsk clubs. According to the website of the European Theatre Convention, Since May 2005 the Free Theatre has produced seven performances based on thirteen plays. About 5,000 people attended performances of the Free Theatre in Belarus, Free Theatre attracts other representatives of Belarusian underground culture in the variety of fields, such as independent music, art, photography, cinematography. On 8 February 2006, Steven Lee Myers reported in The New York Times that The theater, during the conference, there were scheduled screenings for conferees of the video of Square, a documentary film about the situation in Belarus. A mass arrest like this is a first, according to Petz, Khalezin thinks that this is a concerted effort on the part of the police, the special forces OMON and the secret service KGB to exert pressure. Though Khalezin himself is used to such harassment in the past, he stated, im afraid that some of them wont come back. Regardless of all the intentions of special forces to stop the premiere, police were taking video of the event from the forest. On December 19,2010, fifty thousand people went into the streets to protest what they believed to be the election of Alexander Lukashenko. More than a thousand of those were beaten and arrested, including Artistic Director Natalia Koliada, other members of the theatre, at the Belarus Embassy in London, dozens of leaders from the artistic community, including Ian McKellen, protested the arrests, bringing international attention. Natalia Koliada was released, while Nikolai Khalezin went into hiding, Khalezin, who is also a dramatist himself, having become famous with his piece Ja prishel which gleaned many international awards, observes that All theatres in Belarus are state-owned. The directors and creative directors are appointed by the Ministry of Culture, the performances are censored, the programs are old and musty. We want to offer an alternative, a theatre that discusses social problems with a degree of creative freedom
Belarus Free Theatre
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Natalia Koliada at a benefit in
New York City, January 2011.
31.
Suzan-Lori Parks
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Suzan-Lori Parks is an American playwright, screenwriter and novelist. Her 2001 play Topdog/Underdog won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002, Parks is the first African American woman to achieve this honor, Parks was born in Fort Knox, Kentucky on May 10,1963, she grew up with two siblings in a military family. Parks enjoyed writing poems and songs and even created a newspaper with her brother, in 1974 her father, a career officer in the United States Army, was stationed in West Germany where she attended middle school and attended German high school. The experience showed her what it feels like to be neither white nor black, after returning to the United States Parks lived and attended school in several states such as Kentucky, Texas, California, North Carolina, Maryland, and Vermont. Parks says her constant relocation could have influenced her writing and she graduated high school at The John Carroll School in 1981 while her father was stationed in Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. In high school, Parks was discouraged from studying due to a teacher criticising her spelling. However, upon reading Virginia Woolfs To the Light House, Parks found herself veering away from her initial interest in chemistry, Parks attended and graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1985 with a B. A. in English and German literature while a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She studied under James Baldwin, who encouraged her to become a playwright, James Baldwin describes Parks during this time as, an utterly astounding and beautiful creature who may become one of the most valuable artists of our time. Suzan-Lori Parks continued studying a year in acting at Drama Studio London in order to understand the stage. Parks credits the impact of Mount Holyoke on her later in life. Since acting at the Drama Studio, Suzan-Lori Parks has received 11 awards and she has also received a number of grants including the MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant in 2001, the same year as the production of her play Topdog/Underdog. While she was an undergraduate, her Mount Holyoke English professor Mary McHenry introduced Parks to James Baldwin, Parks began to take classes with Baldwin and, at his behest, began to write plays. She was still out of touch with theater, the plays she was familiar with were those of Shakespeare. Parks also noted that she was inspired by Wendy Wasserstein, a 1971 Mount Holyoke graduate who won the Pulitzer in 1989 for her play The Heidi Chronicles, Parks also credited another Mount Holyoke professor, Leah Blatt Glasser, with her success. Parks first screenplay was for Spike Lees 1996 film Girl 6 and its just getting more specific, letting the words hold the emotion. Instead of some parenthetical stage direction and she is a winner of the 2017 Poets, Essayists and Novelists America Literary Awards in the category Master American Dramatist. Parks once asked a woman on the subway where she could send her scripts because she believed they were unconventional, Parks creates many roles and plays for people of her origin, while also writing for those not of her origin. She is one of the first in theater to fully exploit the power of spoken Black English, one of her main points is to make the most of what you have, even if you do not have much at all
Suzan-Lori Parks
–
Suzan-Lori Parks
32.
Pulitzer Prize
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The Pulitzer Prize /ˈpʊlᵻtsər/ is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine and online journalism, literature, and musical composition in the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of American Joseph Pulitzer who had made his fortune as a newspaper publisher, Prizes are awarded yearly in twenty-one categories. In twenty of the categories, each receives a certificate. The winner in the service category of the journalism competition is awarded a gold medal. The Pulitzer Prize does not automatically consider all applicable works in the media, entries must fit in at least one of the specific prize categories, and cannot simply gain entrance for being literary or musical. Works can also only be entered in a maximum of two categories, regardless of their properties, each year,102 jurors are selected by the Pulitzer Prize Board to serve on 20 separate juries for the 21 award categories, one jury makes recommendations for both photography awards. For each award category, a jury makes three nominations, the board selects the winner by majority vote from the nominations or bypasses the nominations and selects a different entry following a 75% majority vote. The board can also vote to issue no award, the board and journalism jurors are not paid for their work, however, the jurors in letters, music, and drama receive a $2,000 honorarium for the year, and each chair receives $2,500. Anyone whose work has been submitted is called an entrant, the jury selects a group of nominated finalists and announces them, together with the winner for each category. However, some journalists who were submitted, but not nominated as finalists. For example, Bill Dedman of msnbc, Dedman wrote, To call that submission a Pulitzer nomination is like saying that Adam Sandler is an Oscar nominee if Columbia Pictures enters Thats My Boy in the Academy Awards. Many readers realize that the Oscars dont work that way—the studios dont pick the nominees and its just a way of slipping Academy Awards into a bio. The Pulitzers also dont work that way, but fewer people know that, newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer gave money in his will to Columbia University to launch a journalism school and establish the Prize. It allocated $250,000 to the prize and scholarships and he specified four awards in journalism, four in letters and drama, one in education, and four traveling scholarships. After his death, the first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded June 4,1917, many people have won more than one Pulitzer Prize. Nelson Harding is the person to have won a Prize in two consecutive years, the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1927 and 1928. Four prizes Robert Frost, Poetry Eugene ONeill, Drama Robert E, in rare instances, contributors to the entry are singled out in the citation in a manner analogous to individual winners. Journalism awards may be awarded to individuals or newspapers or newspaper staffs, infrequently, Awards are made in categories relating to journalism, arts, letters and fiction
Pulitzer Prize
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Pulitzer Prize
33.
A Chorus Line
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A Chorus Line is a musical with music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban and a book by James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nicholas Dante. Centred on seventeen Broadway dancers auditioning for spots on a chorus line, a Chorus Line provides a glimpse into the personalities of the performers and the choreographer as they describe the events that have shaped their lives and their decisions to become dancers. Following several workshops and an Off-Broadway production, A Chorus Line opened at the Shubert Theatre on Broadway July 25,1975, an unprecedented box office and critical hit, the musical received twelve Tony Award nominations and won nine, in addition to the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It remains the sixth longest-running Broadway show ever, a Chorus Lines success has spawned many successful productions worldwide. It began a run in the West End in 1976 and was revived on Broadway in 2006. The show opens in the middle of an audition for an upcoming Broadway production, the formidable director Zach and his assistant choreographer Larry put the dancers through their paces. Every dancer is desperate for work, after the next round of cuts,17 dancers remain. Zach tells them he is looking for a dancing chorus of four boys. He wants to more about them, and asks the dancers to introduce themselves. With reluctance, the reveal their pasts. The stories generally progress chronologically from early life experiences through adulthood to the end of a career, the first candidate, Mike, explains that he is the youngest of 12 children. He recalls his first experience with dance, watching his sisters dance class when he was a pre-schooler, Mike took her place one day when she refused to go to class—and he stayed. Bobby tries to hide the unhappiness of his childhood by making jokes, as he speaks, the other dancers have misgivings about this strange audition process and debate what they should reveal to Zach, but since they all need the job, the session continues. Zach is angered when he feels that the streetwise Sheila is not taking the audition seriously, opening up, she reveals that her mother married at a young age and her father neither loved nor cared for them. When she was six, she realized that ballet provided relief from her family life, as did Bebe. The scatter-brained Kristine is tone-deaf, and her lament that she could never sing is interrupted by her husband Al finishing her phrases in tune. Mark, the youngest of the dancers, relates his first experiences with pictures of the anatomy and his first wet dream. The 410 Connie laments the problems of being short, and Diana Morales recollects her horrible high school acting class, Don remembers his first job at a nightclub and Judy reflects on her problematic childhood while some of the auditionees talk about their opinion of their parents
A Chorus Line
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Original Broadway windowcard
34.
Tony Awards
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The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at a ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway productions and performances, and an award is given for regional theatre, several discretionary non-competitive awards are also given, including a Special Tony Award, the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre, and the Isabelle Stevenson Award. The awards are named after Antoinette Tony Perry, co-founder of the American Theatre Wing, the rules for the Tony Awards are set forth in the official document Rules and Regulations of The American Theatre Wings Tony Awards, which applies for that season only. It also forms the fourth spoke in the EGOT, that is someone who has won all four awards, the Tony Awards are also considered the equivalent of the Laurence Olivier Award in the United Kingdom and the Molière Award of France. From 1997 to 2010, the Tony Awards ceremony was held at Radio City Music Hall in New York City in June and broadcast live on CBS television, except in 1999, in 2011 and 2012, the ceremony was held at the Beacon Theatre. From 2013 to 2015, the 67th, 68th, and 69th ceremonies returned to Radio City Music Hall, the 70th Tony Awards were held on June 12,2016 at the Beacon Theatre. The 71st Tony Awards will be held on June 11,2017, as of 2014, there are 24 categories of awards, plus several special awards. Starting with 11 awards in 1947, the names and number of categories have changed over the years, some examples, the category Best Book of a Musical was originally called Best Author. The category of Best Costume Design was one of the original awards, for two years, in 1960 and 1961, this category was split into Best Costume Designer and Best Costume Designer. It then went to a category, but in 2005 it was divided again. For the category of Best Director of a Play, a category was for directors of plays. A newly established non-competitive award, The Isabelle Stevenson Award, was given for the first time at the ceremony in 2009. The award is for an individual who has made a contribution of volunteered time and effort on behalf of one or more humanitarian. The category of Best Special Theatrical Event was retired as of the 2009–2010 season, the categories of Best Sound Design of a Play and Best Sound Design of a Musical were retired as of the 2014-2015 season. Performance categories Show and technical categories Special awards Retired awards The award was founded in 1947 by a committee of the American Theatre Wing headed by Brock Pemberton. The award is named after Antoinette Perry, nicknamed Tony, an actress, director, producer and co-founder of the American Theatre Wing, who died in 1946. As her official biography at the Tony Awards website states, At Jacob Wilks suggestion, proposed an award in her honor for distinguished stage acting, at the initial event in 1947, as he handed out an award, he called it a Tony
Tony Awards
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Designed by
Herman Rosse, 1949
Tony Awards
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Former logo
35.
Drama Desk Awards
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Broadway productions were excluded until the 1968–69 award season. The awards are considered a significant American theatre distinction and they debuted the presentations of the Vernon Rice Awards. The name honors the New York Post critic Vernon Rice, who had pioneered Off-Broadway coverage in the New York press, the name was changed for the 1963–1964 awards season to the Drama Desk Awards. In 1974, the Drama Desk became incorporated as a not-for-profit organization, in 1975, the Drama announcement of winners included the nominees as well. The Drama Desk has more than 100 members, including critics, reporters and editors who cover New York theater. Membership consists of two categories, Active membership and Participating Membership, all of the Drama Desk officers and Nominating Committee members perform their various services for the organization on a voluntary basis. The Nominating Committee generally meets twice a month to discuss the many eligible shows members are responsible for seeing and they then nominate the productions on which the entire membership will vote. What sets the organization apart is that the awards are voted on by people only without any vested interests in the results. Previous winners include Bernadette Peters, Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, over the last 36 years, the Drama Desk Awards have contributed to the ongoing success of major stars, playwrights and designers, while also identifying newcomers. The Drama Desk was the first New York theater organization to give awards to talents such as Edward Albee, Wendy Wasserstein, plays like Driving Miss Daisy, Other Peoples Money, Steel Magnolias, and The Boys in the Band built momentum with the help of Drama Desk wins. In 2010 William Wolf was announced as the President of Drama Desk, the current managing executive producer of the Drama Desk Awards is Gretchen Shugart, and the president of the Drama Desk is Charles Wright. David Barbour is chairperson of the nominating committee, in keeping with its original mission, the organization sponsors guest panel luncheons with theater professionals. Panels address topics of current interest, covering the season on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Off-Off-Broadway, with the aim of prompting informative and stimulating discussion
Drama Desk Awards
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Drama Desk Awards
36.
Pulitzer Prizes
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The Pulitzer Prize /ˈpʊlᵻtsər/ is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine and online journalism, literature, and musical composition in the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of American Joseph Pulitzer who had made his fortune as a newspaper publisher, Prizes are awarded yearly in twenty-one categories. In twenty of the categories, each receives a certificate. The winner in the service category of the journalism competition is awarded a gold medal. The Pulitzer Prize does not automatically consider all applicable works in the media, entries must fit in at least one of the specific prize categories, and cannot simply gain entrance for being literary or musical. Works can also only be entered in a maximum of two categories, regardless of their properties, each year,102 jurors are selected by the Pulitzer Prize Board to serve on 20 separate juries for the 21 award categories, one jury makes recommendations for both photography awards. For each award category, a jury makes three nominations, the board selects the winner by majority vote from the nominations or bypasses the nominations and selects a different entry following a 75% majority vote. The board can also vote to issue no award, the board and journalism jurors are not paid for their work, however, the jurors in letters, music, and drama receive a $2,000 honorarium for the year, and each chair receives $2,500. Anyone whose work has been submitted is called an entrant, the jury selects a group of nominated finalists and announces them, together with the winner for each category. However, some journalists who were submitted, but not nominated as finalists. For example, Bill Dedman of msnbc, Dedman wrote, To call that submission a Pulitzer nomination is like saying that Adam Sandler is an Oscar nominee if Columbia Pictures enters Thats My Boy in the Academy Awards. Many readers realize that the Oscars dont work that way—the studios dont pick the nominees and its just a way of slipping Academy Awards into a bio. The Pulitzers also dont work that way, but fewer people know that, newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer gave money in his will to Columbia University to launch a journalism school and establish the Prize. It allocated $250,000 to the prize and scholarships and he specified four awards in journalism, four in letters and drama, one in education, and four traveling scholarships. After his death, the first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded June 4,1917, many people have won more than one Pulitzer Prize. Nelson Harding is the person to have won a Prize in two consecutive years, the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1927 and 1928. Four prizes Robert Frost, Poetry Eugene ONeill, Drama Robert E, in rare instances, contributors to the entry are singled out in the citation in a manner analogous to individual winners. Journalism awards may be awarded to individuals or newspapers or newspaper staffs, infrequently, Awards are made in categories relating to journalism, arts, letters and fiction
Pulitzer Prizes
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Pulitzer Prize
37.
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
The Pirates of Penzance
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Drawing of the Act I finale
The Pirates of Penzance
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The Pirate Publisher – An International Burlesque that has the Longest Run on Record, from
Puck, 1886: Gilbert is seen as one of the British authors whose works are stolen by the pirate publisher.
The Pirates of Penzance
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George Grossmith as General Stanley, wearing
Wolseley 's trademark moustache
The Pirates of Penzance
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Catherine Ferguson (Kate),
Nellie Briercliffe (Edith), and Ella Milne (Isabel), 1920
38.
The Tempest
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The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on an island, where the sorcerer Prospero, rightful Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place using illusion. He conjures up a storm, the eponymous tempest, to lure his usurping brother Antonio, there, his machinations bring about the revelation of Antonios lowly nature, the redemption of the King, and the marriage of Miranda to Alonsos son, Ferdinand. In addition, one of Gonzalos speeches is derived from Montaignes essay Of the Canibales, the masque in Act 4 may have been a later addition, possibly in honour of the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Frederick V in 1613. The play was first published in the First Folio of 1623, the story draws heavily on the tradition of the romance, and it was influenced by tragicomedy, the courtly masque and perhaps the commedia dellarte. It differs from Shakespeares other plays in its observation of a stricter, H. Gonzalo, Alonsos counselor, had secretly supplied their boat with some food, fresh water, rich garments, linens, stuffs and necessaries, and volumes that Prospero prizes. Prospero maintains Ariels loyalty by promising to release the airy spirit from servitude. Sycorax had been exiled from Algiers to the island for wreaking havoc with her magic, Sycorax son, Caliban, a deformed monster and the only non-spiritual inhabitant before the arrival of Prospero, was initially adopted and raised by him. He taught Prospero how to survive on the island, while Prospero and Miranda taught Caliban religion, in slavery, Caliban has come to view Prospero as a usurper and has grown to resent him and his daughter. Prospero and Miranda in turn view Caliban with disappointment, contempt, Prospero only performs one act of magic himself directly on stage, he disarms Ferdinand, causing his nerves to become in their infancy again. The rest of his magic is through controlling spirits, which is how magicians of the time were believed to operate, Prospero, having divined that his brother Antonio is on a nearby ship, has raised a tempest that causes the passengers to believe they are shipwrecked and marooned. Also on the ship are Antonios friend and fellow conspirator, King Alonso of Naples, Alonsos brother and son and Alonsos trusted counselor, all these passengers are returning from the wedding of Alonsos daughter Claribel and the King of Tunis. Prospero contrives to separate the shipwreck survivors into several groups by his spells, three plots then alternate through the play. In one, Caliban falls in with Stephano and Trinculo, two drunkards, believing Stephano to be a god who bears celestial liquor. They attempt to raise a coup against Prospero, which ultimately fails, in the third subplot, Antonio and Sebastian conspire to kill Alonso and Gonzalo so that Sebastian can become King. Ariel thwarts them, at Prosperos command, Ariel appears to the three men of sin as a harpy, reprimanding them for their betrayal of Prospero. Prospero, who has witnessed this, leaves to visit Ferdinand, the three guilty nobles run off, distracted and in a frenzy, and Gonzalo and the attendant lords chase after to prevent them from doing what this ecstasy may now provoke them to. Prospero then explains that he tested Ferdinand, and betroths a willing Miranda to him and he then asks Ariel to bring some other spirits and create a masque to entertain the young couple
The Tempest
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The shipwreck in Act I, Scene 1, in a 1797 engraving by
Benjamin Smith after a painting by
George Romney
The Tempest
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Prospero and Miranda from a painting by
William Maw Egley; ca. 1850
The Tempest
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Miranda by
John William Waterhouse
The Tempest
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A depiction from
Nicholas Rowe's 1709 edition of Shakespeare's plays of the stage direction of the opening of the 1674 adaptation
39.
Michael John LaChiusa
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Michael John LaChiusa is an American musical theatre and opera composer, lyricist, and librettist. He is best known for musically esoteric shows such as Hello Again, Marie Christine, The Wild Party, and See What I Wanna See. He was nominated for four Tony Awards in 2000 for his score, LaChiusa grew up in Chautauqua, New York, the eldest of three boys in an Italian Catholic family. His parents had a ery mentally abusive relationship, Michael was not close to his father and he taught himself to play piano at the age of seven and had little formal music training. LaChiusa graduated high school early and enrolled in a journalism program. In 1980, LaChiusa moved to New York City, where he took jobs as a music director and accompanist while trying to find songwriting work. In the mid-1980s, he joined the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop, where he was influenced by a series of mentors. In 1993, The Public Theaters producer George C. Wolfe presented LaChiusas First Lady Suite, a year later, Lincoln Center produced his musical Hello Again Off Broadway. A series of interconnected stories about love based on Arthur Schnitzlers play La Ronde, Hello Again was nominated for ten Drama Desk Awards, during the 1999-2000 season, two of LaChiusas large-scale musicals premiered on Broadway, Marie Christine and The Wild Party. Marie Christine closed after 42 performances, LaChiusa later said that the show in my mind should have performed for three performances. Its huge, and its intensely difficult, the Wild Party was based on the 1928 poem of the same name by Joseph Moncure March and starred Toni Collette, Mandy Patinkin, and Eartha Kitt. The Wild Party struggled commercially, after receiving seven Tony nominations but failing to win a single one, for both Marie Christine and The Wild Party, LaChiusa received Tony nominations for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score. In 2003, Little Fish, an uncharacteristically cheerful one-act musical for LaChiusa, the shows failure sent LaChiusa into a funk, he recalled, I went, My God, they dont want the hard stuff and more challenging material here in this city from me. They dont want something nice and fun, either, what am I supposed to do. He continued, Instead of choreography, there is dancing, Instead of crafted songwriting, there is tune-positioning. Faux-musicals are mechanical, they have to be, for expectations to be met, there can be no room for risk, derring-do or innovation. The article caused a deal of controversy and provoked shocked responses from several of LaChiusas colleagues. LaChiusa was nominated for Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding Music and Outstanding Lyrics, in September 2008, he was quoted in Opera News Online as working on an adaptation of Bizets opera Carmen with Tony winner Audra McDonald in mind
Michael John LaChiusa
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An official publicity photo for Michael John LaChiusa
Michael John LaChiusa
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Michael John LaChiusa speaks to students after a performance of his musical
Bernarda Alba (musical) at Columbia College.
40.
The Wild Party (LaChiusa musical)
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The Wild Party is a musical with a book by Michael John LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe and music and lyrics by LaChiusa. It is based on the 1928 Joseph Moncure March narrative poem of the same name, the Broadway production coincidentally opened during the same theatrical season as an off-Broadway musical with the same title and source material. The show is presented as a series of sketches, complete with signs at the beginning. Queenie and Burrs, whose relationship is disintegrating, host a party fueled by bathtub gin, cocaine and it quickly devolves into an orgy that culminates in tragedy. The Wild Party opened at the Virginia Theatre on April 13,2000 after 36 previews and it was directed by Wolfe and choreographed by Joey McKneely. The cast included Toni Collette as Queenie, Mandy Patinkin as Burrs, although her role was reduced over the course of workshop productions, Eartha Kitt, returning to Broadway after an absence of more than twenty years, created the role of Dolores. The four were backed by an ensemble cast, each of whom has a featured song or key moments to take center stage. In 2001, LaChiusa said that the role of Queenie was written for the African-American actress Vanessa L. Williams, who was replaced with Colette when she became pregnant. LaChiusa said, I dont think of it as something that was lost in the piece, the show is all about the masks that we wear culturally and the removal of those masks over the course of the party. A cast album was released on the Decca Records label, the Vaudeville The company recounts the story of Queenie, a blonde who works as a showgirl in the Vaudeville, who is attracted to violent and vicious men. She is currently living with a man named Burrs, who works in the same vaudeville and his act is a minstrel show, where he performs in black face. One Sunday, Queenie wakes up restless and she and Burrs soon come to blows, to try to put less strain on their relationship, Burrs suggest they throw a huge party and invite all the old gang. Queenie is ecstatic and they get prepared for the evening, promenade of Guests The guests soon arrive and exchange words with Burrs, and alcohol starts flowing. Queenie makes her appearance in a new dress, and welcomes everyone, meeting Nadine, Queenie takes her under her wing as she mingles with the other guests. Madelaine, an almost famous stripper, introduces Queenie to her new girlfriend, the catatonic morphine-addicted Sally, Madelaine believes Sally is a post-modernist, to which Burrs replies in need of a post mortem. Madelaine tells Queenie of their love and of Sallys genius, next up is Jackie, an ambisextrous rich kid with his eye on anybody and everybody. The incestuously-devoted DArmono Brothers, Oscar and Phil sing a new ditty as Gold and Goldberg and they are planning to move uptown, and Burrs is convinced that they want to take him. He joins in with the brothers to impress them, Queenie wonders where her friend Kate is, and Burrs expresses his dislike for her
The Wild Party (LaChiusa musical)
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Original Cast Album
41.
The Ride Down Mt. Morgan
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The Ride Down Mt. Morgan is a play by Arthur Miller. The plays central character is Lyman Felt, an agent and bigamist who maintains families in New York City. When confronted with his duplicity, Felt states that the two options in life are to be true to others or to himself, and that he has chosen the latter. He justifies his actions to both shocked women by explaining he has given them good lives, has supported financially and emotionally. He goes on to say that the two women have been happier with this arrangement than they would have if they had been the only wife. As reasons for this he cites domestic boredom, routine, the play uses flashbacks to take us to previous situations both families have lived. Every character starts having to deal with their own hypocrisy, even Felts outraged business partners who are discovered to keep lovers. Through Felt, Miller presents the supposition that monogamy is an unnatural and unattainable state imposed on men by rigid, Patrick Stewart as Lyman Felt, protagonist, husband of Theo and Leah, father of Bessie and Benjamin. Frances Conroy as Theo, married to Lyman for 30 years, shannon Burkett as Bessie, Lyman and Theos adult daughter Oni Faida Lampley as Nurse Logan Katy Selverstone as Leah, married to Lyman for 9 years, mother of Benjamin John C. Seven years later, it received its first New York City staging in a directed by David Esbjornson, which opened on October 27,1998 at the Public Theater. The cast included Patrick Stewart, Katy Selverstone, and Frances Conroy, after 23 previews, the Public production opened on April 9,2000 at Broadways Ambassador Theatre, where it ran for 121 performances. They subsequently took the matter to Actors Equity, which ruled that Stewart had to apologize publicly for his outburst, the incident no doubt affected the actors chances at a Tony Award nomination since, despite critical praise for his performance, he failed to garner one. As of late 2006, a version directed by Nicole Kassell and produced by. Morgan at the Internet Broadway Database TheatreMania Review
The Ride Down Mt. Morgan
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Penguin Books edition with (left to right) Frances Conroy, Patrick Stewart, and Katy Selverstone
42.
Take Me Out (play)
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Take Me Out is a 2002 play by American playwright Richard Greenberg originally staged by Donmar Warehouse, London, with The Public Theater. It premiered Off-Broadway on September 5,2002, at the Joseph Papp Public Theater, and made its Broadway debut on February 27,2003, at the Walter Kerr Theatre and it won the 2003 Tony Award for Best Play. Much of the play is set in the room of a professional baseball team, and as such has an all-male cast that explores themes of homophobia, racism, class. The plays main character, Darren Lemming, is a popular, several of his teammates react strongly, and the drama plays out over the course of a baseball season with tragic consequences. This play is the exploration of what such an event might be like. Take Me Out ran at the Donmar Warehouse 20 June -3 August 2002, jimenez - Martinez/Policeman Joe Lisi - Skipper/William R. Danziger Kohl Sudduth- Jason Chenier James Yaegashi - Takeshi Kawabata Take Me Out was produced in Singapore by Tim Garner Productions. The play opened on 8 January 2014 and ran until 16 January at the DBS Arts Centre, Take Me Out at the Internet Broadway Database Take Me Out at the Internet off-Broadway Database Take Me Out at the Internet Broadway Database
Take Me Out (play)
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Take Me Out
43.
Caroline, or Change
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The show ran both Off-Broadway and On Broadway as well as in London. The musical was first workshopped in May 1992 at New Yorks off-Broadway Public Theater, director George C. Wolfe continued to workshop the musical at the Public Theater, where it opened on November 30,2003 and closed on February 1,2004. It transferred to Broadway at the Eugene ONeill Theatre on May 2,2004, the musical starred Tonya Pinkins in the title role, Anika Noni Rose as Emmie Thibodeaux, Harrison Chad as Noah Gellman, Veanne Cox as Rose Stopnick Gellman and Chandra Wilson as Dotty Moffett. The choreographer was Hope Clarke, scenic design by Riccardo Hernandez, costume design by Paul Tazewell, despite its relatively short run, it was critically acclaimed and nominated for six Tony Awards, including Best Musical. The production did not transfer to the West End but did win the Olivier Award for Best New Musical, the opening night cast in London starred Tonya Pinkins as Caroline. Pinkins and Anika Noni Rose reprised their roles in late 2004 at the Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, California and in early 2005 at the Curran Theatre, San Francisco, California. January–February 2010, The Human Race Theatre Company, Dayton, Ohio November 4–20,2011. in 2017, Roundhouse Theatre in Bethesda, Maryland staged it as part of a season with a focus on Tony Kushner plays. A2012 production by Acting Up Stage Company in Toronto, Ontario garnered Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Sterling Jarvis and Arlene Duncan. Act One On a hot day in 1963 in Lake Charles, Louisiana, Caroline, the Gellmans 8-year-old son Noah, whose mother has recently died of cancer, is attracted to Caroline, a no-nonsense single parent. Caroline allows Noah to light her one cigarette each day, a secret they can share, Caroline puts the laundry in the dryer and sings about her four kids and cleaning houses for 22 years. Noahs new stepmother Rose cannot give Caroline a raise, but tells her to some extra food home to her kids. Noahs father Stuart, despondent since his wifes death, tells Noah he has lost his faith, Noah confesses that he hates Rose. Rose confesses to her father, Mr. Stopnick, that she is unhappy as well, after work, Caroline argues with her friend Dotty about each others lifestyles. The moon rises as they wait for a bus and they discuss the recent mysterious destruction of a statue of a Confederate soldier at the courthouse. The bus arrives with devastating news, President Kennedy has been assassinated, Rose tells Noah to stop leaving money in his pants pockets, and that any money Caroline finds in his laundry will be hers to keep. The Gellman family reminisces about the good President Kennedy did for the Jews—and Dotty reminisces about the good he intended to do for African Americans, on the front porch of her house, Caroline tells her teenage daughter Emmie that the president is dead. Emmie says she doesnt care, because JFK never fulfilled his promises to the black community, Noah, awake in his bedroom, asks Caroline what laws she would pass if she were president. Rose tells Caroline she is allowed to any money she finds in Noahs pants, to supplement her salary
Caroline, or Change
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Caroline, or Change
44.
Passing Strange
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The musicals lyrics and book are by Stew with music and orchestrations by Heidi Rodewald and Stew. It was created in collaboration with director Annie Dorsen, the musical was developed at the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab in 2004 and 2005, one of the few works to be invited back for a second round of development. It had productions in Berkeley, California and Off-Broadway before opening on Broadway in 2008, garnering strong reviews, Spike Lee filmed the musical on Broadway in July 2008, premiering the film in 2009. Stew had never written a play before Passing Strange, a longtime rock musician and performer, he wanted to combine the energy of a rock show with the lively potential of a theater setting. Stew stated that the title Passing Strange comes from Shakespeares 1603 play Othello, the Moor of Venice. In the play, the title character utters the lines, My story being done, She gave me for my pains a world of sighs, She swore, in faith twas strange, twas passing strange. Twas wondrous pitiful, She wishd she had not heard it, —Othello, the Moor of Venice, act 1, scene 3, lines 158–163 Stew commented that the quote reminds him of a rock musician who tries to attract a girl with his on-the-road stories. Passing also refers to the history of African Americans passing as white and his experiences are shaped by his black, American, and middle-class identity. Stew summarized the story and the music, Its, about the costs of being a young artist. Its a 46-year-old guy looking back at the things that he did, the musical was nominated for seven Tony Awards, winning one, for best book. It won three Drama Desk Awards, however, for outstanding musical, music and lyrics, among a number of other awards, Passing Strange premiered on October 19,2006, at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Berkeley, California. It was then produced off-Broadway at The Public Theater in New York City, running from May 14,2007, through June 3,2007. The musical began previews at the Belasco Theatre on Broadway on February 8,2008, after 165 performances, it closed on July 20,2008. Directed by Annie Dorsen, the musical was choreographed by Karole Armitage, with design by David Korins, costume design by Elizabeth Hope Clancy. The first regional production opened at The Studio Theatre in Washington, D. C. on July 18,2010 with a revised script and it did not include co-creator Stew as the Narrator, and the cast was expanded from seven to fourteen players. Passing Strange played at ACT Theatre in Seattle, WA in June, the first production in a high school opened at The Beacon School in New York on May 8,2014, completely uncensored. It was directed by Jo Ann M. Cimato, starring Dazay Burnett as the Narrator, the Narrator introduces the male, African-American protagonist as the Youth—whom the Narrator also refers to as the hero or pilgrim. Here, he meets the son and choir director, Franklin Jones, who as a marijuana-smoking closeted gay man, exposes the Youth to drugs, New Negro culture
Passing Strange
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Passing Strange
45.
The Normal Heart
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The Normal Heart is a largely autobiographical play by Larry Kramer. It focuses on the rise of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York City between 1981 and 1984, as seen through the eyes of writer/activist Ned Weeks, the gay founder of a prominent HIV advocacy group. Ned prefers loud public confrontations to the calmer, more private strategies favored by his associates, friends and their differences of opinion lead to frequent arguments that threaten to undermine their mutual goal. After a successful 1985 Off-Broadway production at The Public Theater, the play was revived in Los Angeles and London, a Broadway debut opened in April 2011. For the first time in his life, meanwhile, Ned falls in love, the increasing death toll raises the unknown illness, now believed to be caused by a virus, to the status of an epidemic, though the press remains largely silent on the issue. A sense of urgency guides Ned who realizes that Ben is more interested in buying a house than in backing Neds activism. Ned explosively breaks off ties to his brother until Ben can fully accept Ned, Ned next looks to Mayor Ed Kochs administration for aid in financing research about the epidemic that is quickly killing off hundreds of gay men, including some of Neds personal friends. Tensions between the two are clear, though they must work together toward the promotion of their organization, Felix, meanwhile, reveals to Ned his belief that he is infected with the mysterious virus. Although he continues to try to strengthen interactions with the mayor, Ned ruins his chances when his relentless, Dr. Brookner gradually takes the role of activist herself, noting the epidemics appearance in other countries around the world and even among heterosexual couples. As Felixs condition worsens, he visits Ben Weeks in order to make his will, Felix soon dies and Ned blames himself for Felixs death, lamenting that he did not fight hard enough to have his voice heard. The mortality rate from HIV/AIDS is shown to continue increasing as the stage fades to black, after most performances of the 2011 revival of The Normal Heart, Kramer personally passed out a dramaturgical flyer detailing some of the real stories behind the plays characters. Linda Laubenstein, who treated some of the first New York cases of what was known as AIDS. It has been suggested that the model for Felix was John Duka, produced by Joseph Papp and directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the play opened Off-Broadway at The Public Theater on April 21,1985, and ran for 294 performances. The original cast included Brad Davis as Ned and D. W. Moffett as Felix, with David Allen Brooks as Bruce Niles, Joel Grey replaced Davis later in the run. The play received its European premiere in 1986 at Londons Royal Court Theatre where it was directed by David Hayman, in that production Ned Weeks was initially played by Martin Sheen who received an Olivier Award nomination as Best Actor. When it transferred to the Albery Theatre Ned Weeks was played by Tom Hulce, for that production Paul Jesson, who played Felix, won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role. In a student production of the play at Cambridge University in 1988, the play received its Australian premiere at the Sydney Theatre Company in 1989 directed by Wayne Harrison. In subsequent productions of the play, Ned Weeks was portrayed by Richard Dreyfuss in Los Angeles, on April 18,1993, Barbra Streisand organized and introduced a benefit reading for Broadway Cares at the Roundabout Theatre Company
The Normal Heart
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Cover of the paperback edition released by
Plume in October 1985
46.
Romanesque Revival architecture
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Romanesque Revival is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, however, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to feature more simplified arches, an early variety of Romanesque Revival style known as Rundbogenstil was popular in German lands and in the German diaspora beginning in the 1830s. By far the most prominent and influential American architect working in a free Romanesque manner was Henry Hobson Richardson, in the United States, the style derived from examples set by him are termed Richardsonian Romanesque, of which not all are Romanesque Revival. In Scotland the style started to emerge with the Duke of Argyl’s castle at Inverary, started in 1744, and castles by Robert Adam at Culzean, Oxenfoord, Dalquharran and it was at this point that the Norman Revival became a recognisable architectural style. In 1817 Thomas Rickman published his An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of English Architecture from the Conquest To the Reformation and it was now realised that ‘round-arch architecture’ was largely Romanesque in the British Isles and came to be described as Norman rather than Saxon. The start of an archaeologically correct Norman Revival can be recognised in the architecture of Thomas Hopper and his first attempt at this style was at Gosford Castle in Armagh in Ireland, but far more successful was his Penrhyn Castle near Bangor in North Wales. This was built for the Pennant family, between 1820 and 1837, however, the Norman Revival did catch on for church architecture. It was Thomas Penson, a Welsh architect, who would have been familiar with Hopper’s work at Penrhyn, Penson was influenced by French and Belgian Romanesque architecture, and particularly the earlier Romanesque phase of German Brick Gothic. At St David’s Newtown, 1843–47 and St Agatha’s Llanymynech,1845, he copies the tower of St. Salvators Cathedral, other examples of Romanesque revival by Penson are Christ Church, Welshpool, 1839–1844, and the porch to Langedwyn Church. He was an innovator in his use of Terracotta to produce decorative Romanesque mouldings, during the 19th century the architecture selected for Anglican churches depended on the churchmanship of particular congregations. Some of the examples of this Romanesque architecture is seen in Non-conformist or Dissenting churches. A good example of this is by the Lincoln architects Drury and Mortimer, after about 1870 this style of Church architecture in Britain disappears, but in the early 20th century, the style is succeeded by Byzantine Revival architecture. Two of Canadas provincial legislatures, the Ontario Legislative Building in Toronto, University College, one of seven colleges at the University of Toronto, is a chief example of the Romanesque Revival style. The building, designed by Frederic Cumberland and William G. Storm, was intended to be Gothic in style but was rejected by the governor general. Construction of the design began on 4 October 1856. The facade of University College has thick walls, incorporating layers of both stone and brick. The building possesses a number of round arches characteristic of the Roman Revival style, the arches are configured in arcades, most notably on the south side of the building. There is a deal of ornamentation on both the interior and exterior of University College
Romanesque Revival architecture
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The
Smithsonian Institution Building, an early example of American Romanesque Revival designed by
James Renwick, Jr. in 1855.
Romanesque Revival architecture
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Culzean Castle by Robert Adam, 1771
Romanesque Revival architecture
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GosfordCastle, Armagh by Thomas Hopper
Romanesque Revival architecture
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Penrhyn Castle - by Thomas Hopper 1820-1837
47.
New York Public Library
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The New York Public Library is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States and it is a private, non-governmental, independently managed, nonprofit corporation operating with both private and public financing. The library has branches in the boroughs of Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island, the City of New Yorks other two boroughs, Brooklyn and Queens, are served by the Brooklyn Public Library and the Queens Library, respectively. The branch libraries are open to the public and consist of circulating libraries. The New York Public Library also has four libraries which are open to the general public as well. At the behest of Joseph Cogswell, John Jacob Astor placed a codicil in his will to bequeath $400,000 for the creation of a public library. After Astors death in 1848, the board of trustees executed the wills conditions. The library created was a reference library, its books were not permitted to circulate. An act of the New York State Legislature incorporated the Lenox Library in 1870, the library was built on Fifth Avenue, between 40th and 42nd streets, in 1877. Bibliophile and philanthropist James Lenox donated a vast collection of his Americana, art works, manuscripts, at its inception, the library charged admission and did not permit physical access to any literary items. Both the Astor and Lenox libraries were struggling financially, although New York City already had numerous libraries in the 19th century, almost all of them were privately funded and many charged admission or usage fees. On May 23,1895, Bigelow and representatives of the two agreed to create The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. The plan was hailed as an example of philanthropy for the public good. The newly established library consolidated with the grass-roots New York Free Circulating Library in February 1901, the trustees hired McKim, Mead & White, Carrère and Hastings, and Walter Cook to design all the branch libraries. The notable New York author Washington Irving was a friend of Astor for decades and had helped the philanthropist design the Astor Library. They saw their role as protecting the librarys autonomy from politicians as well as bestowing upon it status, resources, representative of many major board decisions was the purchase in 1931 of the private library of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich, uncle of the last tsar. This was one of the largest acquisitions of Russian books and photographic materials, at the time, the military drew extensively from the librarys map and book collections in the world wars, including hiring its staff. For example, the Map Divisions chief Walter Ristow was appointed as head of the section of the War Departments New York Office of Military Intelligence from 1942 to 1945
New York Public Library
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The
New York Public Library Main Branch in
Bryant Park,
Manhattan
New York Public Library
New York Public Library
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The New York Public Library main building during late stage construction in 1908, the lion statues not yet installed at the entrance
New York Public Library
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Lenox copy of the Gutenberg Bible in the New York Public Library
48.
William Backhouse Astor, Sr.
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William Backhouse Astor Sr. was an American property tycoon who inherited most of his father John Jacob Astors fortune. He worked as a partner in his fathers export business. His massive investment in Manhattan real estate enabled major donations to the Astor Library in East Village, William was born in New York City to fur-trader John Jacob Astor and Sarah Cox Todd. His seven siblings were Magdalena, Sarah, John Jr. Dorothea, Henry, Eliza, and his spare hours and vacations were employed in assisting his father in the store. He chose as his tutor a student, afterward known as the Chevalier Christian Charles Josias von Bunsen, with whom he also traveled. In 1815, he returned to the United States and entered partnership with his father, Williams elder brother, occasional poet John Jacob Astor Jr. was sickly and mentally unstable. John Jr. was left incapable of working in the firm and he worked there until his fathers death. Although Williams fortunes grew with his fathers company, he became a wealthy man when he inherited the estate, worth around $500,000. When John Jacob Astor Sr. died in 1848, William became the richest man in America, following the example of his father, he invested in real estate, principally situated below Central Park, between 4th and 7th Avenues, which rapidly increased in value. For about 13 years prior to 1873 he was engaged in building until much of his hitherto unoccupied land was covered by houses. He was said to own in 1867 as many as 720 houses, and he was heavily interested in railroad, coal. His management of the real estate holdings succeeded in multiplying their value. His house at Barrytown, New York, known as Rokeby, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, during the American Civil War he successfully brought a case against the income tax imposed by the United States government, which was ruled unconstitutional. On May 20,1818, William married Margaret Alida Rebecca Armstrong, John Armstrong Jr. was President James Madisons second Secretary of War. Alida was a member of the Livingston family, William and Margaret had seven children, Emily Astor, who m. April 16,1850 John Carey and had three children Laura Eugenia Astor, who m, september 17,1844 Franklin Hughes Delano, William Backhouse Astor Jr. who m. September 20,1853 socialite Caroline Webster Lina Schermerhorn, and had five children Henry Astor III, the edifice was completed under his directions in May,1853. In 1855 he presented to the trustees the adjoining lot, and erected thereon a similar structure and he next gave $50,000 for the purchase of books
William Backhouse Astor, Sr.
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Astor, c. 1850
William Backhouse Astor, Sr.
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William Backhouse Astor, Sr.
49.
John Jacob Astor
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Born in Germany, Astor emigrated to England as a teenager and worked as a musical instrument manufacturer. He moved to the United States after the American Revolutionary War and he entered the fur trade and built a monopoly, managing a business empire that extended to the Great Lakes region and Canada, and later expanded into the American West and Pacific coast. Seeing the decline of demand, he got out of the fur trade in 1830, diversifying by investing in New York City real estate and he was the first prominent member of the Astor family and the first multi-millionaire in the United States. Johann Jakob Astor was born in Walldorf near Heidelberg in the old Palatinate and he was the youngest son of Johann Jakob Astor and Maria Magdalena Vorfelder. His three elder brothers were Georg Peter, Heinrich, and Melchior, Astors father was a butcher, Johann first worked in his fathers shop and as a dairy salesman. In 1779, at the age of 16, he moved to London to join his brother George in working for a piano and flute manufactory. While there, he learned English and anglicized his name and his intent was to join his brother Henry, who had established a butcher shop there, but a chance meeting with a fur trader on his voyage inspired him to join the North American fur trade as well. After working at his brothers shop for a time he began to purchase raw hides from Native Americans, prepare them himself and he opened his own fur goods shop in New York in the late 1780s and also served as the New York agent of his uncles musical instrument business. Astor took advantage of the Jay Treaty between Great Britain and the United States in 1794, which opened new markets in Canada and the Great Lakes region. In London, Astor at once made a contract with the North West Company, Astor imported furs from Montreal to New York and shipped them to Europe. By 1800, he had amassed almost a quarter of a million dollars and his agents worked throughout the western areas and were ruthless in competition. In 1800, following the example of the Empress of China, the first American trading vessel to China, Astor traded furs, teas, and sandalwood with Canton in China, embargo Act in 1807, however, disrupted Astors import/export business because it closed off trade with Canada. With the permission of President Thomas Jefferson, Astor established the American Fur Company on April 6,1808 and he later formed subsidiaries, the Pacific Fur Company, and the Southwest Fur Company, in order to control fur trading in the Great Lakes areas and Columbia River region. His Columbia River trading post at Fort Astoria was the first United States community on the Pacific coast and he financed the overland Astor Expedition in 1810–12 to reach the outpost. Members of the expedition were to discover South Pass, through hundreds of thousands of settlers on the Oregon, Mormon. Astors fur trading ventures were disrupted during the War of 1812, in 1816, he joined the opium-smuggling trade. His American Fur Company purchased ten tons of Turkish opium, then shipped the contraband item to Canton on the packet ship Macedonian, Astor later left the China opium trade and sold solely to the United Kingdom. Astors business rebounded in 1817 after the U. S. Congress passed a protectionist law that barred foreign fur traders from U. S. territories, the American Fur Company came to dominate trading in the area around the Great Lakes
John Jacob Astor
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Portrait by
John Wesley Jarvis (c. 1825)
John Jacob Astor
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John Jacob Astor
50.
Alexander Saeltzer
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Alexander Saeltzer was a German-American architect active in New York City in the 1850s and 1860s. His father, Wilhelm Saeltzer, was a brickyard-owner, an architect, a Grand Duke council of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, alexander Saeltzer was born in Eisenach, Germany. He studied at Berlin Bauakademie and was a pupil of Schinkels and he moved to the U. S. from Berlin. Saeltzer was engaged in February 1849 to design the synagogue at 172 Norfolk Street in an area of New York known as kleine Deutschland, the synagogues Gothic Revival style was inspired by the Cologne Cathedral in Cologne, Germany, and Friedrichwerdesche Kirche in Berlin. Debuted with celebration, the layout of the Ten Commandments and the use of stained glass in the synagogue later caused controversy within the congregation. It was the demise of the Astor Opera House that spurred New Yorks elite to build a new house in what was then the more genteel neighborhood of Union Square. Efforts were led by Moses H. Grinnell, who formed a corporation in 1852 to fund the construction of the building, shares were sold at $1,000 each to raise $200,000. The stages proscenium opening was 48 feet, with an additional 35 feet in the wings, the height of the proscenium opening was 30 feet. The acoustics were lauded, but seating arrangement and vies came infor criticism, Saeltzer won the competition to build the library designed the building in Rundbogenstil style, then the prevailing style for public building in Germany. Funding was provided by William B, Astor, son of the librarys founder, John Jacob Astor. Astor funded two expansions of the building toward Astor Place by Griffith Thomas from 1856–1869 and Thomas Stent from 1879–1881, both large expansions followed Saeltzers original design making it difficult for an observer to detect that the edifice was built in three stages. In 1920, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society purchased the building, by 1965 it was in disuse and faced demolition. The Public Theater, then the New York Shakespeare Festival, persuaded the city to purchase it for use as a theater and it was converted for theater use by Giorgio Cavaglieri between 1967 and 1976. The building is a New York City Landmark, designated in 1965 and it was one of the first buildings to be recognized as such by the newly formed Landmarks Preservation Commission of New York City, thanks to Joseph Papp’s perseverance. In 2009, The Public began its “Going Public” campaign to raise funds for a renovation of the historic building. Groundbreaking for the $35 million renovation occurred on March 9,2010, with such as Liev Schreiber. Plans include a renovation of Joe’s Pub, the Pub went on a hiatus during the summer of 2011 to allow for construction. The Fourteenth Street Theatre was a New York City theatre located at 107 West 14th Street just west of Sixth Avenue, as a home for French language dramas and opera
Alexander Saeltzer
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Angel Orensanz Center
Alexander Saeltzer
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Academy of Music, New York, c.1909
Alexander Saeltzer
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Astor Library, including later additions by other architects
Alexander Saeltzer
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Stereoscopic view of Lyceum Theatre (14th Street Theatre) c.1871
