1.
Tennessee Williams
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Thomas Lanier Tennessee Williams III was an American playwright. Along with Eugene ONeill and Arthur Miller he is considered among the three foremost playwrights in 20th-century American drama, after years of obscurity, he became suddenly famous with The Glass Menagerie, closely reflecting his own unhappy family background. This heralded a string of successes, including A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and his later work attempted a new style that did not appeal to audiences, and alcohol and drug dependence further inhibited his creative output. His drama A Streetcar Named Desire is often numbered on the short list of the finest American plays of the 20th century alongside Long Days Journey into Night, much of Williams most acclaimed work was adapted for the cinema. He also wrote stories, poetry, essays and a volume of memoirs. In 1979, four years before his death, Williams was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. Thomas Lanier Williams III was born in Columbus, Mississippi, of English, Welsh, and Huguenot ancestry and his father was an alcoholic traveling shoe salesman who spent much of his time away from home. Williams early childhood was spent in the parsonage there, Williams had two siblings, sister Rose Isabel Williams and brother Walter Dakin Williams. As a small child Williams suffered from a case of diphtheria which nearly ended his life, leaving him weak, at least in part as a result of his illness, he was less robust as a child than his father wished. Cornelius Williams, a descendant of hearty East Tennessee pioneer stock, had a violent temper and was a man prone to use his fists. He regarded his sons effeminacy with disdain, and his mother Edwina, locked in an unhappy marriage, many critics and historians note that Williams found inspiration for much of his writing in his own dysfunctional family. When Williams was eight years old, his father was promoted to a job at the office of the International Shoe Company in St. Louis. He attended Soldan High School, a setting he referred to in his play The Glass Menagerie, Later he studied at University City High School. At age 16, Williams won third prize for an essay published in Smart Set entitled, a year later, his short story The Vengeance of Nitocris was published in the August 1928 issue of the magazine Weird Tales. That same year he first visited Europe with his grandfather, from 1929 to 1931, he attended the University of Missouri, in Columbia, where he enrolled in journalism classes. Williams found his classes boring, however, and was distracted by his love for a girl. He was soon entering his poetry, essays, stories, and plays in writing contests and his first submitted play was Beauty Is the Word, followed by Hot Milk at Three in the Morning. As recognition for Beauty, a play about rebellion against religious upbringing, at University of Missouri, Williams joined the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity, but he did not fit in well with his fraternity brothers
2.
Al Hirschfeld Theatre
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The Al Hirschfeld Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 302 West 45th Street in midtown Manhattan. Designed by architect G. Albert Lansburgh for vaudeville promoter Martin Beck and it was the only theatre in New York that was owned outright without a mortgage. It was designed to be the most opulent theatre of its time, the theatre has a seating capacity of 1,424 for musicals. Coffi in the musical Curtains, and Daniel Radcliffe in the latest revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and this is one of five theatres owned and operated by Jujamcyn Theatres, who purchased it in 1965 from the Beck family. In the Fall of 2002, Jujamcyn Theatres announced that the Martin Beck Theatre would be renamed in June 2003 in honor of illustrator Al Hirschfeld, as Hirschfeld approached his 100th birthday. Jujamcyn President Rocco Landesman described the renaming as “an important event for the history and heritage of Broadway. ”Landesman stated that “No one working in our world is more deserving than Al Hirschfeld. ”Notably, Hirschfeld has become the only visual artist to have a Broadway theater named after him. Although Hirschfeld died prior to the renaming on June 23,2003. Hirschfeld’s traditional aisle seat was vacant in his honor during the presentation. The theater constructed a new marquee to mark its renaming, featuring a version of Hirschfeld’s Self-Portrait As An Inkwell. West 45th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues was closed to traffic for the unveiling of the new marquee, the marquee was initially installed with red neon representing the “ink, ” but blue neon was later substituted because the red was perceived by some as “macabre”. 1931, The House of Connelly 1934, The Pirates of Penzance,1966, A Delicate Balance 1967, Hallelujah, Baby. 2012, Elf the Musical 2013, Kinky Boots The limited-engagement Elf the Musical achieved the box office record for the Al Hirschfield Theatre, the production grossed $1,572,835.50 over nine performances, for the week ending December 26,2010. Whos Who in the Theatre, edited by John Parker, tenth edition, revised, London,1947, p.1184
3.
Broadway theatre
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Along with Londons West End theatres, Broadway theatres are widely considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. The Theater District is a popular tourist attraction in New York City, the great majority of Broadway shows are musicals. They presented Shakespeare plays and ballad operas such as The Beggars Opera, in 1752, William Hallam sent a company of twelve actors from Britain to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager. They established a theatre in Williamsburg, Virginia and opened with The Merchant of Venice, the company moved to New York in the summer of 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida. The Revolutionary War suspended theatre in New York, but thereafter theatre resumed in 1798, the Bowery Theatre opened in 1826, followed by others. Blackface minstrel shows, a distinctly American form of entertainment, became popular in the 1830s, by the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan. In 1829, at Broadway and Prince Street, Niblos Garden opened, the 3, 000-seat theatre presented all sorts of musical and non-musical entertainments. In 1844, Palmos Opera House opened and presented opera for four seasons before bankruptcy led to its rebranding as a venue for plays under the name Burtons Theatre. The Astor Opera House opened in 1847, booth played the role for a famous 100 consecutive performances at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1865, and would later revive the role at his own Booths Theatre. Other renowned Shakespeareans who appeared in New York in this era were Henry Irving, Tommaso Salvini, Fanny Davenport, lydia Thompson came to America in 1868 heading a small theatrical troupe, adapting popular English burlesques for middle-class New York audiences. Thompsons troupe called the British Blondes, was the most popular entertainment in New York during the 1868–1869 theatrical season, the six-month tour ran for almost six extremely profitable years. Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown beginning around 1850, in 1870, the heart of Broadway was in Union Square, and by the end of the century, many theatres were near Madison Square. Broadways first long-run musical was a 50-performance hit called The Elves in 1857, New York runs continued to lag far behind those in London, but Laura Keenes musical burletta The Seven Sisters shattered previous New York records with a run of 253 performances. It was at a performance by Keenes troupe of Our American Cousin in Washington, the production was a staggering five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length, it ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and the Post was the first show to call itself a musical comedy, Tony Pastor opened the first vaudeville theatre one block east of Union Square in 1881, where Lillian Russell performed. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 and 1890, with book and lyrics by Harrigan and music by his father-in-law David Braham. They starred high quality singers, instead of the women of repute who had starred in earlier musical forms. Plays could run longer and still draw in the audiences, leading to better profits, as in England, during the latter half of the century, the theatre began to be cleaned up, with less prostitution hindering the attendance of the theatre by women
4.
Italian Americans
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Italian Americans are an ethnic group comprising Americans who have full or partial ancestry from Italy, especially those who identify with that ancestry, along with their cultural characteristics. Italian Americans are the fourth largest European ethnic group in the United States, about 5.5 million Italians immigrated to the United States from 1820 to 2004. Immigration began in earnest during the 1870s, when more than twice as many Italians immigrated than during the five previous decades altogether. The 1870s were followed by the greatest surge of immigration, which occurred in the period between 1880 and 1914 and brought more than 4 million Italians to America. This period of large scale immigration ended abruptly with the onset of the First World War in 1914 and, except for one year, further immigration would be greatly limited by a number of restrictive laws passed by Congress in the 1920s. Approximately 84% of the Italian immigrants came from Southern Italy and Sicily, after unification, the Italian government initially encouraged emigration to relieve economic pressures in the South. After the American Civil War, which resulted in over a million killed or wounded, immigrant workers were recruited from Italy. In the United States, most Italians began their new lives as manual laborers in Eastern cities, mining camps, Italian Americans gradually moved from the lower rungs of the economic scale in the first generation to a level comparable to the national average by 1970. By 1990, more than 65% of Italian Americans were managerial, professional, the Italian-American communities have often been characterized by strong ties with family, the Catholic Church, fraternal organizations and political parties. Today, over 17 million Americans claim Italian ancestry, third only to Brazil with 31 million, and Argentina, Italians and their descendants in America have helped to shape the country and, in turn, have adapted to it. They have gained prominence in politics, sports, the media, the arts, the culinary arts. Italian navigators and explorers played a key role in the discovery, exploration, christopher Columbus, the explorer who first reached the Americas in 1492–1504, was Italian. Another notable Italian explorer, Amerigo Vespucci, who explored the east coast of South America between 1499 and 1502, is the source of the name America. Englands claims in North America were based on the voyages of the Italian explorer John Cabot, in 1524 the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano was the first European to map the Atlantic coast of todays United States, and to enter New York Bay. In 1539, Marco da Nizza, explored the territory later became the states of Arizona. In the 17th century, Henri de Tonti, together with the French explorer LaSalle, De Tonti founded the first European settlement in Illinois in 1679, and in Arkansas in 1683. With LaSalle, he co-founded New Orleans, and was governor of the Louisiana Territory for the next 20 years and his brother Alphonse de Tonty, with French explorer Antoine Cadillac, was the co-founder of Detroit in 1701, and was its acting colonial governor for 12 years. Spain and France were Catholic countries and sent many missionaries to convert the native population, included among these missionaries were numerous Italians
5.
Mississippi
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Mississippi /ˌmɪsᵻˈsɪpi/ is a state in the southern region of the United States, with part of its southern border formed by the Gulf of Mexico. Its western border is formed by the Mississippi River, the state has a population of approximately 3 million. It is the 32nd most extensive and the 32nd most populous of the 50 United States, located in the center of the state, Jackson is the state capital and largest city, with a population of approximately 175,000 people. The state is heavily forested outside of the Mississippi Delta area, before the American Civil War, most development in the state was along riverfronts, where slaves worked on cotton plantations. After the war, the bottomlands to the interior were cleared, by the end of the 19th century, African Americans made up two-thirds of the Deltas property owners, but timber and railroad companies acquired much of the land after a financial crisis. Clearing altered the Deltas ecology, increasing the severity of flooding along the Mississippi, much land is now held by agribusinesses. The states catfish aquaculture farms produce the majority of farm-raised catfish consumed in the United States, since the 1930s and the Great Migration, Mississippi has been majority white, albeit with the highest percentage of black residents of any U. S. state. From the early 19th century to the 1930s, its residents were mostly black, whites retained political power through Jim Crow laws. In 2010, 37% of Mississippians were African Americans, the highest percentage of African Americans in any U. S. state, since gaining enforcement of their voting franchise in the late 1960s, most African Americans support Democratic candidates in local, state and national elections. Conservative whites have shifted to the Republican Party, African Americans are a majority in many counties of the Mississippi-Yazoo Delta, an area of historic settlement during the plantation era. Since 2011 Mississippi has been ranked as the most religious state in the country, the states name is derived from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary. Settlers named it after the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi, in addition to its namesake, major rivers in Mississippi include the Big Black River, the Pearl River, the Yazoo River, the Pascagoula River, and the Tombigbee River. Major lakes include Ross Barnett Reservoir, Arkabutla Lake, Sardis Lake, Mississippi is entirely composed of lowlands, the highest point being Woodall Mountain, in the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains,807 feet above sea level. The lowest point is sea level at the Gulf coast, the states mean elevation is 300 feet above sea level. Most of Mississippi is part of the East Gulf Coastal Plain, the coastal plain is generally composed of low hills, such as the Pine Hills in the south and the North Central Hills. The Pontotoc Ridge and the Fall Line Hills in the northeast have somewhat higher elevations, yellow-brown loess soil is found in the western parts of the state. The northeast is a region of black earth that extends into the Alabama Black Belt. The coastline includes large bays at Bay St. Louis, Biloxi, the northwest remainder of the state consists of the Mississippi Delta, a section of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain
6.
Eli Wallach
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Eli Herschel Wallach was an American film, television and stage actor whose career spanned more than six decades, beginning in the late 1940s. Trained in stage acting, which he enjoyed doing most, he one of the greatest character actors ever to appear on stage and screen states TCM. On stage, he often co-starred with his wife, Anne Jackson, as a stage and screen character actor, Wallach had one of the longest careers in show business, spanning 62 years from his Broadway debut to his last major Hollywood studio movie. Wallach initially studied method acting under Sanford Meisner, and later became a member of the Actors Studio. His versatility gave him the ability to play a variety of different roles throughout his career. For his debut performance in Baby Doll, he won a BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer. Among his other most famous roles are Calvera in The Magnificent Seven, Guido in The Misfits, and Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Other notable portrayals include outlaw Charlie Gant in How The West Was Won, Don Altobello in The Godfather Part III, Cotton Weinberger in The Two Jakes, and Arthur Abbott in The Holiday. One of Americas most prolific screen actors, Wallach remained active well into his nineties, with roles as recently as 2010 in Wall Street, Money Never Sleeps and The Ghost Writer. Wallach received BAFTA Awards, Tony Awards and Emmy Awards for his work, in March,2017, the Harry Ransom Center announced the acquisition of Wallachs papers, along with that of his wife. It will be made public when cataloging is complete, Wallach was born in Red Hook, Brooklyn, at 156 Union Street, a son of Jewish immigrants Abraham and Bertha Wallach, both from Poland. He had a brother and two sisters, with his family being the only Jews in an otherwise Italian American neighborhood and his parents owned Berthas Candy Store. Wallach graduated in 1936 from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in history, while at the university, he performed in a play with fellow students Ann Sheridan and Walter Cronkite. In a later interview, Wallach said that he learned to ride horses while in Texas and he explained, You could rely on people. If they gave you their word, that was it, Two years later he received a master of arts degree in education from the City College of New York. He gained his first method acting experience at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City, there, according to Wallach, actors were forced to unlearn all their physical and vocal mannerisms, while traditional stage etiquette and singsong deliveries were utterly excised from his classroom. Wallachs education was cut short when he was drafted into the United States Army in January 1941 and he served as staff sergeant in a military hospital in Hawaii and later sent to Officer Candidate School in Abilene, Texas to train as a medical administrative officer. Commissioned a second lieutenant, he was ordered to Casablanca, later, when he was serving in France, a senior officer noticed his acting career and asked him to create a show for the patients
