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.
The Rose Tattoo (film)
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The Rose Tattoo is a 1955 film adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play of the same name. It was adapted by Williams and Hal Kanter and directed by Daniel Mann, with stars Anna Magnani, Burt Lancaster, Marisa Pavan and Jo Van Fleet. Williams originally wrote the play for Italian Anna Magnani to play on Broadway in 1951, by the time of this film adaptation, she was ready. Serafina Delle Rose proudly praises her husband Rosario to her neighbors in a shopping market. Returning home she finds Rosario asleep in bed and whispers to him that she is with child, emerging from his room she finds a young woman named Estelle at the door who wants her to make a shirt for her lover from some expensive silk material. It transpires that Rosario is her lover as, when Serafina is out of the room, later that night Rosario is out working and Serafina is busy working on the shirt for her customer. The women of the neighborhood discover that Rosario has been killed in a road accident whilst trying to speed away from the police. When Serafina discovers her husbands demise she collapses, and later the local doctor informs her daughter Rosa. Three years later Serafina is a recluse, having withdrawn from the world and she has allowed her appearance to deteriorate. It is the day of the high school graduation and the women of the neighborhood are impatiently banging on Serafinas front door for their daughters graduation dresses, Rosa is also begging for her graduation dress from her mother, but Serafina has locked them—along with the rest of Rosas clothes—away. Rosas teacher turns up in the neighborhood demanding to know what is keeping them and she goes to the Delle Rose household and eventually makes Serafina see sense and she hands over the key. After much thought Serafina decides to attend her daughters graduation, during this time two women arrive asking if Serafina can quickly mend their bandanas for a festival to which they are going. Serafina reluctantly does so, but is appalled by their talk of men, one of the women, Bessie, takes offense and informs Serafina that her late husband was having an affair. Serafina does not go to the ceremony after this revelation. She is infuriated when Rosa introduces her to her new sailor boyfriend Jack Hunter, after her interrogation, he confides that he is a virgin himself. She forces him to vow before a statue of the Virgin Mary that he will respect Rosas innocence, then Rosa and Jack are picked up by a car of friends for a party. Serafina is still stinging from the revelation that her husband was unfaithful, on a mission to root out the truth, she heads to the church to ask the priest if her husband had confessed to an affair with another woman. He refuses to answer and she attacks him, a truck driver named Alvaro pulls her off the priest, but she tears Alvaros shirtfront in her attack
5.
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
6.
Widow
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A widow is a woman whose spouse has died, while a widower is a man in that situation. The state of having lost ones spouse to death is termed widowhood and these terms are not applied to a person after he or she becomes divorced from their former spouse. The term widowhood can be used for sex, at least according to some dictionaries. Occasionally, the word viduity is used, the adjective form for either sex is widowed. When the death of a spouse occurs, it is said that an effect is to arise. This is a phenomenon that refers to the mortality rate after the death of a spouse. It is “strongest during the first three months after a death, when they had a 66-percent increased chance of dying”. Most widows and widowers suffer from this effect during the first 3 months of their spouses death, in societies where the husband is the sole provider, his death can leave his family destitute. The tendency for women generally to outlive men can compound this, in some patriarchal societies, widows may maintain economic independence. A woman would carry on her spouses business and be accorded certain rights, more recently, widows of political figures have been among the first women elected to high office in many countries, such as Corazón Aquino or Isabel Martínez de Perón. In 19th-century Britain, widows had greater opportunity for social mobility than in other societies. Along with the ability to ascend socio-economically, widows—who were presumably celibate—were much more able to challenge conventional sexual behaviour than married women in their society. Many immigrants from these cultures to the United States as recently as the 1970s have loosened this strict standard of dress to only two years of black garments. However, Orthodox Christian immigrants may wear black in the United States to signify their widowhood. In other cultures, however, widowhood is much stricter and unarguably more demeaning to womens rights, often, women are required to remarry within the family of their late husband after a period of mourning. As of 2004, women in United States who were widowed at younger ages are at greatest risk for economic hardship, similarly, married women who are in a financially unstable household are more likely to become widows because of the strong relationship between mortality and wealth. In underdeveloped and developing areas of the world, conditions for widows continue to be more severe. A variable that is deemed important and relative to the effects of widowhood is the gender of the widow
7.
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
8.
Maureen Stapleton
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Lois Maureen Stapleton was an American actress in film, theater and television. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Lonelyhearts, Airport and Interiors and she was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981. She also won an Emmy Award for the television film Among the Paths to Eden and her other film roles included Bye Bye Birdie, Plaza Suite, The Fan, Cocoon and The Money Pit. Stapleton was born in Troy, New York, the daughter of John P. Stapleton and Irene and her father was an alcoholic and her parents separated during her childhood. Stapleton moved to New York City at the age of eighteen and she once said that it was her infatuation with the handsome Hollywood actor Joel McCrea which led her into acting. She made her Broadway debut in the production featuring Burgess Meredith of The Playboy of the Western World in 1946 and that same year, she played the role of Iras in Shakespeares Antony and Cleopatra in a touring production by actress and producer Katharine Cornell. Stepping in because Anna Magnani refused the role due to her limited English, Stapleton played in other Williams productions, including Twenty-Seven Wagons Full of Cotton and Orpheus Descending, as well as Lillian Hellmans Toys in the Attic. She won a second Tony Award for Neil Simons The Gingerbread Lady, later Broadway roles included Birdie in The Little Foxes opposite Elizabeth Taylor and as a replacement for Jessica Tandy in The Gin Game. Stapletons film career, though limited, brought her immediate success and she appeared in the 1963 film version of Bye Bye Birdie, in the role of Mama Mae Peterson, with Dick Van Dyke, Janet Leigh, Paul Lynde and Ann-Margret. Stapleton played the role of Dick Van Dykes mother, even though she was five months and 22 days older than Van Dyke. She was nominated again for an Oscar for Airport and Woody Allens Interiors and she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Reds, directed by Warren Beatty, in which she portrayed the Lithuanian-born anarchist, Emma Goldman. In her acceptance speech, she stated I would like to thank everyone Ive ever met in my entire life, Stapleton won a 1968 Emmy Award for her performance in Among the Paths of Eden. She was nominated for the version of All the Kings Men, Queen of the Stardust Ballroom. Her later appearances included Johnny Dangerously, Cocoon and its sequel Cocoon and she was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981. She was an alumna of the famous Actors Studio in New York City and she became friends with Marilyn Monroe, who was only one year younger than Stapleton. She was impressed with Monroes talent, and always thought it was a shame that Monroe was rarely allowed to play roles beyond the ditzy blonde, by comparison, Stapleton thought herself lucky, I never had that problem. People looked at me on stage and said, Jesus, that broad better be able to act, one of the most famously remembered scenes at the studio was when Stapleton and Monroe acted in Anna Christie together. She hosted the 19th episode of Season 4 of NBCs Saturday Night Live in 1979, Stapletons first husband was Max Allentuck, general manager to the producer Kermit Bloomgarden, and her second, playwright David Rayfiel, from whom she divorced in 1966
9.
Phyllis Love
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Phyllis Love was an American theater and television actress. Following her graduation in 1948 from Pittsburghs Carnegie Institute of Technology, Love made her way to New York, throughout the 1950s she acted in Broadway productions and the occasional film. She won the Clarence Derwent Award in 1951 for her role in the stage play The Rose Tattoo and she played Mattie Birdwell in the film Friendly Persuasion, and Dick Clarks pregnant wife in The Young Doctors. On television, she appeared principally in guest roles from 1950 until her retirement in the early 1970s. Among her roles were two guest appearances on Perry Mason, both times as the defendant, including the part of Minerva Doubleday in the 1964 episode The Case of the Wooden Nickels. In 1961 she played Dot the waitress in season 4 episode 17 and 18 of Have Gun Will Travel, and in 1962 she played Ellen Carter in The Case of the Bogus Books. The same year she played Mrs. Lucas in the 3rd season episode Four OClock in The Twilight Zone and she also taught English and drama at Morningside High School in Inglewood, California. Love married playwright James Vincent McGee in 1948 and they divorced in 1978 and she was married to her college sweetheart, attorney Alan Paul Gooding from January 22,1983 until her death on October 30,2011 in Menifee, California, at age 85
10.
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
11.
Martin Balsam
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Martin Henry Balsam was an American character actor. Martin Balsam was born in the Bronx borough of New York City, to Russian Jewish parents, Lillian and Albert Balsam and he attended DeWitt Clinton High School, where he participated in the drama club. He studied at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School in New York with the German director Erwin Piscator, Martin Balsam made his professional debut in August 1941 in a production of The Plays the Thing in Locust Valley. During World War II he served as a sergeant radio operator in a B-24 in the China-Burma-India theater of operations, in early 1948, he was selected by Elia Kazan to be a member in the recently formed Actors Studio. Balsam would go on to perform in episodes of the Studios dramatic television anthology series. He appeared in other television drama series, including Decoy with Beverly Garland, The Twilight Zone, as a psychologist in the pilot episode, Five Fingers, Target. The Eleventh Hour, Breaking Point, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Fugitive, agent in The Man from U. N. C. L. E. Episode, The Odd Man Affair, and guest starred in the two-part Murder, She Wrote episode and he also appeared in the Route 66 episode, Somehow it Gets to be Tomorrow. Balsam appeared in films as On the Waterfront,12 Angry Men, Time Limit, Breakfast at Tiffanys, The Carpetbaggers, Seven Days in May, The Anderson Tapes, Hombre, Catch-22. Little Big Man, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, All the Presidents Men, Murder on the Orient Express, The Delta Force, in 1960, he appeared in one of his best remembered roles as Detective Arbogast in Alfred Hitchcocks Psycho. Along with Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum, Martin Balsam appeared in both the original Cape Fear, and the 1991 Martin Scorsese remake and he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Arnold Burns in A Thousand Clowns. In 1968, he won a Tony Award for his appearance in the 1967 Broadway production of You Know I Cant Hear You When the Waters Running. He played Dr. Rudy Wells when the Martin Caidin novel Cyborg was adapted as a TV-movie pilot for The Six Million Dollar Man and he appeared as a spokesman/hostage in the TV movie Raid on Entebbe and as a detective in the TVM Contract on Cherry Street. He also appeared on an episode of Quincy ME, Balsam starred as Murray Klein on the All in the Family spin-off Archie Bunkers Place for two seasons and returned for a guest appearance in the shows 4th and final season. He even filled in for Charles Nelson Reilly on Match Game for one question when Reilly was late for a taping, in 1951, Balsam married his first wife, actress Pearl Somner. His second wife was actress Joyce Van Patten and this marriage lasted for four years and produced one daughter, Talia Balsam. He married his wife, Irene Miller, in 1963. They had two children, Adam and Zoe Balsam, and divorced in 1987, on February 13,1996, Balsam died of a sudden stroke in his hotel room in Rome, Italy, while on vacation
12.
Daniel Mann
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Daniel Mann, also known as Daniel Chugerman, was an American film and television director. Mann was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Helen and Samuel Chugerman and he was a stage actor since childhood, and attended Erasmus Hall High School, New Yorks Professional Childrens School and the Neighborhood Playhouse. He entered films in 1952 as a director, and is known for his excellent ear for dialogue, most of Manns films were adaptations from the stage and literature. Mann died of heart failure in Los Angeles, California, in November 1991 and he is buried in the Jewish Cemetery Hillside Memorial Park. He had three children with his wife, actress Mary Kathleen Williams, Michael Mann, Erica Mann Ramis and his daughter is the widow of director Harold Ramis
13.
Anna Magnani
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Anna Magnani was an Italian stage and film actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress, along with four international awards. Born in Rome, she worked her way through Romes Academy of Dramatic Art by singing at night clubs, during her career, her only child was stricken by polio when he was 18 months old and remained crippled. She was referred to as La Lupa, the perennial toast of Rome, time magazine described her personality as fiery, and drama critic Harold Clurman said her acting was volcanic. In the realm of Italian cinema she was passionate, fearless, and exciting, director Roberto Rossellini called her the greatest acting genius since Eleonora Duse. Playwright Tennessee Williams became an admirer of her acting and wrote The Rose Tattoo specifically for her to star in, a role for which she received an Oscar in 1955. As an actress she became recognized for her dynamic and forceful portrayals of earthy lower-class women in films as LAmore, Bellissima, The Rose Tattoo, The Fugitive Kind. As early as 1950 Life magazine had stated that Magnani was one of the most impressive actresses since Garbo. Magnanis parentage and birthplace are uncertain, some sources suggest she was born in Rome, others in Egypt. Magnani herself stated that her mother was married in Egypt but returned to Rome before giving birth to her at Porta Pia and she was enrolled in a French convent school in Rome where she learned to speak French and play the piano. She also developed a passion for acting from watching the stage their Christmas plays. This period of formal education lasted until the age of fourteen and she was a plain, frail child with a forlornness of spirit. Her grandparents compensated by pampering her with food and clothes, yet while growing up, she is said to have felt more at ease around more earthly companions, often befriending the toughest kid on the block. This trait carried over into her life when she proclaimed. Give me the life of the streets, of common people, at age 17, she went on to study at the Eleonora Duse Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in Rome for two years. To support herself, Magnani sang in nightclubs and cabarets, leading to her being dubbed the Italian Édith Piaf, however, an actor friend Micky Knox, writes that she never studied acting formally and started her career in Italian music halls singing traditional Roman Folk songs. She had the ability to call up emotions at will, to move an audience, stage She was considered an outstanding theatre actress in Anna Christie and The Petrified Forest and had a successful career in variety shows. Early film roles In 1933 she was acting in plays in Rome when she was discovered by Italian filmmaker Goffredo Alessandrini
14.
Burt Lancaster
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Burton Stephen Burt Lancaster was an American film actor. Initially known for playing tough guys, Lancaster went on to success with more complex. He was nominated four times for Academy Awards and won once for his work in Elmer Gantry in 1960 and he also won a Golden Globe for that performance and BAFTA Awards for The Birdman of Alcatraz and Atlantic City. During the 1950s his production company Hecht-Hill-Lancaster was highly successful, making such as Marty, Trapeze, Sweet Smell of Success, Run Silent, Run Deep. The American Film Institute ranks Lancaster as #19 of the greatest male stars of classic Hollywood cinema, Lancaster was born in Manhattan, New York City, at his parents home at 209 East 106th Street, between Second and Third Avenues, today the site of Benjamin Franklin Plaza. Lancaster was the son of Elizabeth and James Henry Lancaster, who was a mailman, both of his parents were Protestants of working class origin. All of Lancasters grandparents were Ulster immigrants to the United States, the family believed themselves to be related to Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts. Before he graduated from DeWitt Clinton, his mother died of a cerebral hemorrhage, Lancaster was accepted by New York University with an athletic scholarship, but subsequently dropped out. At the age of 19, Lancaster met Nick Cravat, with whom he developed a lifelong partnership, together they learned to act in local theatre productions and circus arts at Union Settlement, one of the citys oldest settlement houses. They formed the acrobat duo Lang and Cravat in the 1930s, however, in 1939, an injury forced Lancaster to give up the profession, with great regret. He then found work, first as a salesman for Marshall Fields. He served with General Mark Clarks Fifth Army in Italy from 1943–45, although initially unenthusiastic about acting, after returning to New York from his Army service, Lancaster auditioned for a Broadway play and was offered a role. Wallis, who signed him to an eight-movie contract, Lancasters first filmed movie was Desert Fury. Fortunately for Lancaster, producer Mark Hellinger approached him to star in The Killers, in 1946, the tall, muscular actor won significant acclaim and appeared in two more films the following year. Subsequently, he played in a variety of films, especially in dramas, thrillers, and military and adventure films. In two, The Flame and the Arrow and The Crimson Pirate, a friend from his circus years, Nick Cravat, played a key supporting role, in 1953, Lancaster played one of his best-remembered roles with Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity. The American Film Institute acknowledged the iconic status of the scene from film in which Deborah Kerr. The organization named it one of AFIs top 100 Most Romantic Films of all time, Lancaster won the 1960 Academy Award for Best Actor, a Golden Globe Award, and the New York Film Critics Award for his performance in Elmer Gantry
15.
Marisa Pavan
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Marisa Pavan is an Italian-born actress who first became famous as the twin sister of film star Pier Angeli before achieving film stardom on her own. Her breakthrough came in the film The Rose Tattoo as Anna Magnanis daughter, her role was first assigned to her twin, when Magnani won the Academy Award for Best Actress, Pavan accepted on her behalf as Magnani was not present at the awards ceremony. Pavan was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, losing to Jo Van Fleet, both Magnani and Pavan won Golden Globe Awards that year. Afterwards, Pavan co-starred in films such as Diane, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, The Midnight Story and she also played Abishag in King Vidors biblical epic Solomon and Sheba. Her later films included A Slightly Pregnant Man, Antoine and Sebastian, Pavan married French actor Jean-Pierre Aumont in 1956 and the couple remained together until his death in 2001. I Chose Love Naked City S03EP10 -19611206 - REQUIEM FOR A SUNDAY AFTERNOON as Josephine Marisa Pavan at the Internet Movie Database
16.
Jo Van Fleet
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Catherine Josephine Jo Van Fleet was an American theatre and film actress. Known primarily for playing roles older than she was, her career spanned three decades, and she won an Academy Award as well as a Tony Award. She won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play in 1954 for her performance as Jessie Mae Watts in Horton Footes The Trip to Bountiful, costarring Lillian Gish, after her success on the stage, director Elia Kazan brought her to Hollywood to work on screen. Kazan, who had directed her on stage in 1952s Flight to Egypt and 1953s Camino Real, cast her as Cathy Ames in his adaptation of John Steinbecks East of Eden. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance and her subsequent film work was steady through 1960, and included such films as The Rose Tattoo, Ill Cry Tomorrow, The King and Four Queens, and Gunfight at the O. K. Corral. However, her career did not progress as she had hoped and her friend and mentor, Kazan, once said Jo stagnated, and, since she knew it, was bitter. And as she became bitter, she became more difficult, in 1958, she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance in Look Homeward, Angel, in which she played the acquisitive mother of Anthony Perkins character. Her television work included Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Thriller, Bonanza, Van Fleet was married to William Bales from 1946 until his death in 1990. Van Fleet died in a Jamaica, Queens hospital from undisclosed causes at the age of 80 and her interment was at Flushing Cemetery. She was survived by her son Michael Bales, and a grandson and she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to Motion Pictures, at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard. Jo Van Fleet at the Internet Broadway Database Jo Van Fleet profile, lortel. org, Jo Van Fleet at the Internet Movie Database Jo Van Fleet at the TCM Movie Database Jo Van Fleet at AllMovie
17.
Dublin
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Dublin is the capital and largest city of Ireland. Dublin is in the province of Leinster on Irelands east coast, the city has an urban area population of 1,345,402. The population of the Greater Dublin Area, as of 2016, was 1,904,806 people, founded as a Viking settlement, the Kingdom of Dublin became Irelands principal city following the Norman invasion. The city expanded rapidly from the 17th century and was briefly the second largest city in the British Empire before the Acts of Union in 1800, following the partition of Ireland in 1922, Dublin became the capital of the Irish Free State, later renamed Ireland. Dublin is administered by a City Council, the city is listed by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network as a global city, with a ranking of Alpha-, which places it amongst the top thirty cities in the world. It is a historical and contemporary centre for education, the arts, administration, economy, the name Dublin comes from the Irish word Dubhlinn, early Classical Irish Dubhlind/Duibhlind, dubh /d̪uβ/, alt. /d̪uw/, alt /d̪u, / meaning black, dark, and lind /lʲiɲ pool and this tidal pool was located where the River Poddle entered the Liffey, on the site of the castle gardens at the rear of Dublin Castle. In Modern Irish the name is Duibhlinn, and Irish rhymes from Dublin County show that in Dublin Leinster Irish it was pronounced Duílinn /d̪ˠi, other localities in Ireland also bear the name Duibhlinn, variously anglicized as Devlin, Divlin and Difflin. Historically, scribes using the Gaelic script wrote bh with a dot over the b and those without knowledge of Irish omitted the dot, spelling the name as Dublin. Variations on the name are found in traditionally Irish-speaking areas of Scotland, such as An Linne Dhubh. It is now thought that the Viking settlement was preceded by a Christian ecclesiastical settlement known as Duibhlinn, beginning in the 9th and 10th century, there were two settlements where the modern city stands. Baile Átha Cliath, meaning town of the ford, is the common name for the city in modern Irish. Áth Cliath is a name referring to a fording point of the River Liffey near Father Mathew Bridge. Baile Átha Cliath was an early Christian monastery, believed to have been in the area of Aungier Street, there are other towns of the same name, such as Àth Cliath in East Ayrshire, Scotland, which is Anglicised as Hurlford. Although the area of Dublin Bay has been inhabited by humans since prehistoric times and he called the settlement Eblana polis. It is now thought that the Viking settlement was preceded by a Christian ecclesiastical settlement known as Duibhlinn, beginning in the 9th and 10th century, there were two settlements where the modern city stands. The subsequent Scandinavian settlement centred on the River Poddle, a tributary of the Liffey in an area now known as Wood Quay, the Dubhlinn was a small lake used to moor ships, the Poddle connected the lake with the Liffey. This lake was covered during the early 18th century as the city grew, the Dubhlinn lay where the Castle Garden is now located, opposite the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin Castle
18.
Samuel Beckett
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Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet, who lived in Paris for most of his adult life and wrote in both English and French. He is widely regarded as among the most influential writers of the 20th century, Becketts work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human existence, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour, and became increasingly minimalist in his later career. He is considered one of the last modernist writers, and one of the key figures in what Martin Esslin called the Theatre of the Absurd. Beckett was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and he was elected Saoi of Aosdána in 1984. The Becketts were members of the Anglican Church of Ireland, the family home, Cooldrinagh in the Dublin suburb of Foxrock, was a large house and garden complete with tennis court built in 1903 by Samuels father, William. Samuel Beckett was born on Good Friday,13 April 1906, to William Frank Beckett, a quantity surveyor and descendant of the Huguenots, and Maria Jones Roe, a nurse, Beckett had one older brother, Frank Edward Beckett. At the age of five, Beckett attended a local playschool, where he started to learn music, in 1919, Beckett went to Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh. A natural athlete, Beckett excelled at cricket as a left-handed batsman, later, he was to play for Dublin University and played two first-class games against Northamptonshire. As a result, he became the only Nobel literature laureate to have played first class cricket, Beckett studied French, Italian, and English at Trinity College, Dublin from 1923 to 1927. He was elected a Scholar in Modern Languages in 1926, Beckett graduated with a BA and, after teaching briefly at Campbell College in Belfast, took up the post of lecteur danglais at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris from November 1928 to 1930. While there, he was introduced to renowned Irish author James Joyce by Thomas MacGreevy and this meeting had a profound effect on the young man. Beckett assisted Joyce in various ways, one of which was research towards the book that became Finnegans Wake, in 1929, Beckett published his first work, a critical essay entitled Dante. Becketts close relationship with Joyce and his family cooled, however, Becketts first short story, Assumption, was published in Jolass periodical transition. In 1930, Beckett returned to Trinity College as a lecturer, in November 1930, he presented a paper in French to the Modern Languages Society of Trinity on the Toulouse poet Jean du Chas, founder of a movement called le Concentrisme. It was a parody, for Beckett had in fact invented the poet and his movement that claimed to be at odds with all that is clear. Beckett later insisted that he had not intended to fool his audience, when Beckett resigned from Trinity at the end of 1931, his brief academic career was at an end. He spent some time in London, where in 1931 he published Proust, two years later, following his fathers death, he began two years treatment with Tavistock Clinic psychoanalyst Dr. Wilfred Bion. Aspects of it became evident in Becketts later works, such as Watt, in 1932, he wrote his first novel, Dream of Fair to Middling Women, but after many rejections from publishers decided to abandon it
19.
Brendan Behan
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Brendan Francis Aidan Behan was an Irish Republican, poet, short story writer, novelist, and playwright who wrote in both English and Irish. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest Irish writers and he was also an Irish republican and a volunteer in the Irish Republican Army. Born in Dublin into a republican family, he became a member of the IRAs youth organisation Fianna Éireann at the age of fourteen. However, there was also an emphasis on Irish history and culture in the home. Behan eventually joined the IRA at sixteen, which led to his time in a borstal youth prison in the United Kingdom. During this time, he took it himself to study. In 1954, Behans first play The Quare Fellow, was produced in Dublin and it was well received, however, it was the 1956 production at Joan Littlewoods Theatre Workshop in Stratford, London, that gained Behan a wider reputation. This was helped by a famous drunken interview on BBC television, in 1958, Behans play in the Irish language An Giall had its debut at Dublins Damer Theatre. Later, The Hostage, Behans English-language adaptation of An Giall, Behans autobiographical novel, Borstal Boy, was published the same year and became a worldwide best-seller. He married Beatrice Ffrench-Salkeld in 1955 and he developed diabetes, which ultimately contributed to his death on 20 March 1964. He was given an IRA guard of honour, which escorted his coffin and it was described by several newspapers as the biggest funeral since those of Michael Collins and Charles Stewart Parnell. Behan was born in the city of Dublin at Holles Street Hospital on 9 February 1923 into an educated working-class family. He lived in a house on Russell Street near Mountjoy Square owned by his grandmother, Christine English, if Behans interest in literature came from his father, his political beliefs came from his mother. She remained politically active all her life and was a friend of the Irish republican Michael Collins. Brendan Behan wrote a lament to Collins, The Laughing Boy, the title was from the affectionate nickname Mrs. Behan gave to Collins. Kathleen published her autobiography, Mother of All The Behans, a collaboration with her son Brian, Behans uncle Peadar Kearney wrote the Irish national anthem The Soldiers Song. Following Brendans death, his widow had a child with Cathal Goulding called Paudge Behan, a biographer, Ulick OConnor, recounts that one day, at age eight, Brendan was returning home with his granny and a crony from a drinking session. Isnt it terrible maam to see such a child deformed
20.
Royal National Theatre
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The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdoms three most prominent publicly funded performing arts venues, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Opera House. Internationally, it is known as the National Theatre of Great Britain, from its foundation in 1963 until 1976, the company was based at the Old Vic theatre in Waterloo. The current building is located next to the Thames in the South Bank area of central London, in addition to performances at the National Theatre building, the National Theatre company tours productions at theatres across the United Kingdom. Since 1988, the theatre has been permitted to call itself the Royal National Theatre, the theatre presents a varied programme, including Shakespeare and other international classic drama, and new plays by contemporary playwrights. Each auditorium in the theatre can run up to three shows in repertoire, thus widening the number of plays which can be put on during any one season. In June 2009, the theatre began National Theatre Live, a programme of simulcasts of live productions to cinemas, first in the United Kingdom, the programme began with a production of Phèdre, starring Helen Mirren, which was screened live in 70 cinemas across the UK. NT Live productions have since been broadcast to over 1,000 venues in 35 countries around the world, the NT had an annual turnover of approximately £87 million in 2012–13, of which earned income made up 80%. Support from Arts Council England provided 20% of income, and the remaining 7% came from a mixture of companies, individuals, trusts, in 1847, a critic using the pseudonym Dramaticus published a pamphlet describing the parlous state of British theatre. Production of serious plays was restricted to the patent theatres, at the same time, there was a burgeoning theatre sector featuring a diet of low melodrama and musical burlesque, but critics described British theatre as driven by commercialism and a star system. There was a demand to commemorate serious theatre, with the Shakespeare Committee purchasing the playwrights birthplace for the nation demonstrating a recognition of the importance of serious drama, the following year saw more pamphlets on a demand for a National Theatre from London publisher Effingham William Wilson. The situation continued, with a renewed call every decade for a National Theatre, attention was aroused in 1879 when the Comédie-Française took a residency at the Gaiety Theatre, described in The Times as representing the highest aristocracy of the theatre. This still left the capital without a national theatre and this work was interrupted by World War I. The play was part of the campaign to build a National Theatre. Still, the Government tried to apply unacceptable conditions to save money, attempting to force the amalgamation of the publicly supported companies. In July 1962, with agreements reached, a board was set up to supervise construction. The National Theatre Company opened on 22 October 1963 with Hamlet, the current building was designed by architects Sir Denys Lasdun and Peter Softley and structural engineers Flint & Neill and contains three stages, which opened individually between 1976 and 1977. The construction work was carried out by Sir Robert McAlpine, the Company was to remain at the Old Vic until 1977, when construction of the Olivier was complete. The National Theatre building houses three separate auditoria, additionally, a temporary structure was added in April 2013 and closed in May 2016
21.
Don Murray (actor)
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Donald Patrick Don Murray is an American actor. Murray was born in 1929 the only child of Dennis Aloisius Murray, a Broadway dance director and stage manager, and Ethel Murray, Murray attended East Rockaway High School in East Rockaway, New York where he played football and was on the track team. He was a member of the student government, glee club, upon graduation from high school, he went on to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. After graduating, he made his Broadway debut in the 1951 play The Rose Tattoo. He took a break from acting in order to assist orphans. In 1954, he returned from Europe to America and to acting, upon seeing his performance in the play, director Joshua Logan decided to cast him in 20th Century Foxs film version of Bus Stop. Don Murrays role as Beauregard Bo Decker in Bus Stop marked his film debut and he starred alongside Marilyn Monroe, who played Cherie, the object of his desire. In 1957, he starred as reserved, married bookkeeper Charlie Sampson in The Bachelor Party, the same year he starred in one of his most successful roles, that of Johnny Pope in the drama A Hatful of Rain. Despite director Fred Zinnemanns intention to typecast the actor as the comical brother Polo, thus he portrayed Johnny Pope, a morphine addicted Korean War veteran. The film was one of the first to show the effects of abuse on the addicted. He starred as a blackmailed United States senator in Advise & Consent, the movie was directed by Otto Preminger and cast Murray opposite Henry Fonda and Charles Laughton. He also co-starred with Steve McQueen in the film Baby the Rain Must Fall, in 1976, Murray starred in the film Deadly Hero. In addition to acting, Murray directed a film based on the book The Cross, Murray starred with Otis Young in the ground breaking ABC western television series The Outcasts featuring an interracial bounty hunter team in the post-Civil War West. In 1979, he starred as Sid Fairgate on the long-running prime-time soap opera Knots Landing and he also scripted two episodes of the program in 1980. In 1981 Murray decided to leave the series two seasons to concentrate on other projects, although some sources say he left over a salary dispute. The characters death was notable at the time because it was considered rare to kill off a star character, the death came in the second episode of season three, following season twos cliffhanger in which Sids car careened off a cliff. Although he effectively distanced himself from the series after that, Murray later contributed a segment for Knots Landing, Together Again. In July 2014, there was a retrospective of Murrays films held at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco, in 1956, Don Murray married Hope Lange, with whom he had co-starred in Bus Stop
22.
Tony Award
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The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in 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
23.
Boris Aronson
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Boris Aronson was an American scenic designer for Broadway and Yiddish theatre. He won the Tony Award for Scenic Design six times in his career, the son of a Rabbi, Aronson was born in Kiev, in the Russian Empire, and enrolled in art school during his youth. Aronson became an apprentice to the designer Aleksandra Ekster, who introduced him to the directors Vsevolod Meyerhold and Alexander Tairov, Aronson worked for some years in Moscow and Germany. In Berlin he exhibited at the seminal Van Diemen Gallery First Exhibition of Russian Art, alongside the Constructivists El Lissitzky and Naum Gabo and he wrote two books in Berlin, on Marc Chagall and Jewish graphic art, before he obtained an immigration visa for America in 1923. He achieved fame in New Yorks Jewish community when he designed Schwartzs 1926 revival of Abraham Goldfadens play The Tenth Commandment, although he shunned politics, Aronson produced sets for the Communist affiliated ARTEF, such as Lag Boymer and Jim Kooperkop in 1930. However, he soon left the Yiddish Theatre to prevent his works ghettoization. During the 1930s, he worked on productions by the Group Theatre, including works by Clifford Odets and Irwin Shaw. He continued work on Broadway into the 1960s and 1970s with musicals including Do Re Mi, Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, Zorba, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music and he won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design three times. Aronson designed sets for the Metropolitan Opera and ballet companies, including the production of The Nutcracker choreographed by Mikhail Baryshnikov and he was also a non-theatrical artist, working as a painter and sculptor. At the time of his death in 1980, he was a member of New Yorks theatre and art community, Aronsons wife was Lisa Jalowetz, who worked on many of Aronsons shows as his assistant. In 1979, a year before his death, Aronson was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame, for Company, Harold Prince and Aronson had discussed at length a Francis Bacon painting * of a figure in motion behind a steel-and-glass coffee table. They decided that it captured the frantic, anxious, driven quality of urban life, Aronson presented Prince with that famous chrome-and-glass backdrop. Aronson had made a study of how many buttons he pushed on a day in New York City. Was delighted to find that Aronson had given him two working elevators to play with, was astonished that Aronson didnt do three projects at once, as many designers did, but instead watched every line change every night. The veteran lighting designer Tharon Musser, felt that she learned more from Aronson than from any other set designer in her long career. His design concepts were so strong that if someone went against them, the Merchant of Yonkers Ladies and Gentlemen Cabin in the Sky The Desert Song I Am a Camera The Creation of the World and Other Business Boris Aronson
24.
Ancestry.com
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Ancestry. com LLC is a privately held Internet company based in Lehi, Utah, United States. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical and historical record websites focused on the United States, as of June 2014, the company provided access to approximately 16 billion historical records and had over 2 million paying subscribers. User-generated content tallies to more than 70 million family trees, and subscribers have added more than 200 million photographs, scanned documents, and written stories. Ancestrys brands include Ancestry, AncestryDNA, AncestryHealth, AncestryProGenealogists, Archives. com, Family Tree Maker, Find a Grave, Fold3, Newspapers. com, and Rootsweb. Under its subsidiaries, Ancestry. com operates foreign sites that provide access to services and these include Australia, Canada, China, Japan, Brazil, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and several other countries in Europe and Asia. In 1990, Paul B. Allen and Dan Taggart, two Brigham Young University graduates, founded Infobases and began offering Latter-day Saints publications on floppy disks, in 1988, Allen had worked at Folio Corporation, founded by his brother Curt and his brother-in-law Brad Pelo. Infobases chose to use the Folio infobase technology, which Allen was familiar with, Infobases first products were floppy disks and compact disks sold from the back seat of the founders car. In 1994, Infobases was named among Inc. magazines 500 fastest-growing companies and their first offering on CD was the LDS Collectors Edition, released in April 1995, selling for $299.95, which was offered in an online version in August 1995. Ancestry officially went online with the launched Ancestry. com in 1996, with its roots as a genealogy newsletter started in 1983 by John Sittner, and became an established publishing company in 1984. Ancestry was relaunched as a magazine in January 1994, and went online in 1996, on January 1,1997, Infobases parent company, Western Standard Publishing, purchased Ancestry, Inc. publisher of Ancestry magazine and genealogy books. Western Standard Publishings CEO was Joe Cannon, one of the owners of Geneva Steel. In July 1997, Allen and Taggart purchased Western Standards interest in Ancestry, at the time, Brad Pelo was president and CEO of Infobases, and president of Western Standard. Less than six months earlier, he had been president of Folio Corporation, in March 1997, Folio was sold to Open Market for $45 million. The first public evidence of the change in ownership of Ancestry Magazine came with the July/August 1997 issue and that issues masthead also included the first use of the Ancestry. com web address. More growth for Infobases occurred in July 1997, when Ancestry, Inc. purchased Bookcraft, Infobases had published many of Bookcrafts books as part of its LDS Collectors Library. Pelo also announced that Ancestrys product line would be expanded in both CDs and online. Alan Ashton, an investor in Infobases and founder of WordPerfect, was its chairman of the board. Allen and Taggart began running Ancestry, Inc. independently from Infobases in July 1997, included in the sale were the rights to Infobases LDS Collectors Library on CD
25.
Open access
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Open access refers to online research outputs that are free of all restrictions on access and free of many restrictions on use. These additional usage rights are granted through the use of various specific Creative Commons licenses. There are multiple ways authors can provide access to their work. One way is to publish it and then self-archive it in a repository where it can be accessed for free, such as their institutional repository and this is known as green open access. Some publishers require delays, or an embargo, on when an output in a repository may be made open access. Several initiatives provide an alternative to the American and English language dominance of existing publication indexing systems, including Index Copernicus, SciELO and Redalyc. A second way authors can make their work open access is by publishing it in such a way that makes their research output immediately available from the publisher. This is known as open access, and within the sciences this often takes the form of publishing an article in either an open access journal. Pure open access journals do not charge fees, and may have one of a variety of business models. Many, however, do charge an article processing fee, widespread public access to the World Wide Web in the late 1990s and early 2000s fueled the open access movement, and prompted both the green open access way and the creation of open access journals. Conventional non-open access journals cover publishing costs through access tolls such as subscriptions, some non-open access journals provide open access after an embargo period of 6–12 months or longer. The Budapest statement defined open access as follows, There are many degrees, despite these statements emerging in the 2000s, the idea and practise of providing free online access to journal articles began at least a decade before the term open access was formally coined. Computer scientists had been self-archiving in anonymous ftp archives since the 1970s, the Subversive Proposal to generalize the practice was posted in 1994. Gratis OA refers to online access, and libre OA refers to free online access plus some additional re-use rights. The Budapest, Bethesda, and Berlin definitions had corresponded only to libre OA, the re-use rights of libre OA are often specified by various specific Creative Commons licenses, these almost all require attribution of authorship to the original authors. Open access itself began to be sought and provided worldwide by researchers when the possibility itself was opened by the advent of Internet, the momentum was further increased by a growing movement for academic journal publishing reform, and with it gold and libre OA. Electronic publishing created new benefits as compared to paper publishing but beyond that, rather than applying traditional notions of copyright to academic publications, they could be libre or free to build upon. The intended audience of research articles is usually other researchers, Open access helps researchers as readers by opening up access to articles that their libraries do not subscribe to
26.
The Hollywood Reporter
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Headquartered in Los Angeles, THR is part of the Hollywood Reporter-Billboard Media Group, a group of properties that includes Billboard and SpinMedia. It is owned by Eldridge Industries, a company owned by an executive of its previous owner. Under Janice Min, a faltering THR was relaunched in 2010 as a weekly print magazine with a revamped, continuously updated website, as well as mobile. THR was founded in 1930 by William R, billy Wilkerson as Hollywoods first daily entertainment trade newspaper. The first edition appeared on September 3,1930, and featured Wilkersons front-page Tradeviews column, the newspaper appeared Monday to Saturday for the first 10 years, except for a brief period, then Monday to Friday from 1940. Wilkerson ran the THR until his death in September 1962, although his final column appeared 18 months prior, from the late 1930s, Wilkerson used THR to push the view that the industry was a communist stronghold. In particular, he opposed the screenplay writers trade union, the Screen Writers Guild, in 1946 the Guild considered creating an American Authors Authority to hold copyright for writers, instead of ownership passing to the studios. Wilkerson devoted his Tradeviews column to the issue on July 29,1946 and he went to confession before publishing it, knowing the damage it would cause, but was apparently encouraged by the priest to go ahead with it. The column contained the first industry names, including Dalton Trumbo and Howard Koch, on became the Hollywood blacklist. Eight of the 11 people Wilkerson named were among the Hollywood Ten who were blacklisted after hearings in 1947 by the House Un-American Activities Committee. In 1997 THR reporter David Robb wrote a story about the newspapers involvement, for the blacklists 65th anniversary in 2012, the THR published a lengthy investigative piece about Wilkersons role, by reporters Gary Baum and Daniel Miller. The same edition carried an apology from Wilkersons son, W. R. Wilkerson III and he wrote that his father had been motivated by revenge for his thwarted ambition to own a studio. Wilkersons wife, Tichi Wilkerson Kassel, took over as publisher and she sold the paper on April 11,1988, to Affiliated Publications, parent company of Billboard Publications, for $26.7 million. Robert J. Dowling became THR president in 1988 and editor-in-chief, Dowling brought in Alex Ben Block as editor in 1990, and editorial quality of both news and specials steadily improved. Block and Teri Ritzer dampened much of the coverage and cronyism that had infected the paper under Wilkerson. After Block left, former editor at Variety, Anita Busch, was brought in as editor between 1999 and 2001. Busch was credited with making the paper competitive with Variety, tony Uphoff assumed the publisher position in November 2005. Uphoff was replaced in October 2006 by John Kilcullen, the publisher of Billboard, Kilcullen was a defendant in Billboards infamous dildo lawsuit, in which he was accused of race discrimination and sexual harassment
27.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
28.
Internet Broadway Database
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The Internet Broadway Database is an online database of Broadway theatre productions and their personnel. It was conceived and created by Karen Hauser in 1996 and is operated by the Research Department of The Broadway League, the website also has a corresponding app for both the IOS and Android. This comprehensive history of Broadway provides records of productions from the beginnings of New York theatre in the 18th century up to today, details include cast and creative lists for opening night and current day, song lists, awards and other interesting facts about every Broadway production. Other features of IBDB include an archive of photos from past and present Broadway productions, headshots, links to cast recordings on iTunes or Amazon, gross. Its mission was to be an interactive, user-friendly, searchable database for League members, journalists, researchers, the League recently added Broadway Touring shows to the database for ease of tracking shows that play in theatres across the country. It is managed by Karen Hauser, Michael Abourizk, and Mark Smith of the Broadway League, Internet Theatre Database – ITDb Internet Movie Database – IMDb Internet Book Database – IBookDb Lortel Archives – IOBDb The Broadway League Official website Broadway League website
29.
IMDb
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In 1998 it became a subsidiary of Amazon Inc, who were then able to use it as an advertising resource for selling DVDs and videotapes. As of January 2017, IMDb has approximately 4.1 million titles and 7.7 million personalities in its database, the site enables registered users to submit new material and edits to existing entries. Although all data is checked before going live, the system has open to abuse. The site also featured message boards which stimulate regular debates and dialogue among authenticated users, IMDb shutdown the message boards permanently on February 20,2017. Anyone with a connection can read the movie and talent pages of IMDb. A registration process is however, to contribute info to the site. A registered user chooses a name for themselves, and is given a profile page. These badges range from total contributions made, to independent categories such as photos, trivia, bios, if a registered user or visitor happens to be in the entertainment industry, and has an IMDb page, that user/visitor can add photos to that page by enrolling in IMDbPRO. Actors, crew, and industry executives can post their own resume and this fee enrolls them in a membership called IMDbPro. PRO can be accessed by anyone willing to pay the fee, which is $19.99 USD per month, or if paid annually, $149.99, which comes to approximately $12.50 per month USD. Membership enables a user to access the rank order of each industry personality, as well as agent contact information for any actor, producer, director etc. that has an IMDb page. Enrolling in PRO for industry personnel, enables those members the ability to upload a head shot to open their page, as well as the ability to upload hundreds of photos to accompany their page. Anyone can register as a user, and contribute to the site as well as enjoy its content, however those users enrolled in PRO have greater access and privileges. IMDb originated with a Usenet posting by British film fan and computer programmer Col Needham entitled Those Eyes, others with similar interests soon responded with additions or different lists of their own. Needham subsequently started an Actors List, while Dave Knight began a Directors List, and Andy Krieg took over THE LIST from Hank Driskill, which would later be renamed the Actress List. Both lists had been restricted to people who were alive and working, the goal of the participants now was to make the lists as inclusive as possible. By late 1990, the lists included almost 10,000 movies and television series correlated with actors and actresses appearing therein. On October 17,1990, Needham developed and posted a collection of Unix shell scripts which could be used to search the four lists, at the time, it was known as the rec. arts. movies movie database
30.
Internet Archive
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The Internet Archive is a San Francisco–based nonprofit digital library with the stated mission of universal access to all knowledge. As of October 2016, its collection topped 15 petabytes, in addition to its archiving function, the Archive is an activist organization, advocating for a free and open Internet. Its web archive, the Wayback Machine, contains over 150 billion web captures, the Archive also oversees one of the worlds largest book digitization projects. Founded by Brewster Kahle in May 1996, the Archive is a 501 nonprofit operating in the United States. It has a budget of $10 million, derived from a variety of sources, revenue from its Web crawling services, various partnerships, grants, donations. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, California, where about 30 of its 200 employees work, Most of its staff work in its book-scanning centers. The Archive has data centers in three Californian cities, San Francisco, Redwood City, and Richmond, the Archive is a member of the International Internet Preservation Consortium and was officially designated as a library by the State of California in 2007. Brewster Kahle founded the Archive in 1996 at around the time that he began the for-profit web crawling company Alexa Internet. In October 1996, the Internet Archive had begun to archive and preserve the World Wide Web in large quantities, the archived content wasnt available to the general public until 2001, when it developed the Wayback Machine. In late 1999, the Archive expanded its collections beyond the Web archive, Now the Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software. It hosts a number of projects, the NASA Images Archive, the contract crawling service Archive-It. According to its web site, Most societies place importance on preserving artifacts of their culture, without such artifacts, civilization has no memory and no mechanism to learn from its successes and failures. Our culture now produces more and more artifacts in digital form, the Archives mission is to help preserve those artifacts and create an Internet library for researchers, historians, and scholars. In August 2012, the Archive announced that it has added BitTorrent to its file download options for over 1.3 million existing files, on November 6,2013, the Internet Archives headquarters in San Franciscos Richmond District caught fire, destroying equipment and damaging some nearby apartments. The nonprofit Archive sought donations to cover the estimated $600,000 in damage, in November 2016, Kahle announced that the Internet Archive was building the Internet Archive of Canada, a copy of the archive to be based somewhere in the country of Canada. The announcement received widespread coverage due to the implication that the decision to build an archive in a foreign country was because of the upcoming presidency of Donald Trump. Kahle was quoted as saying that on November 9th in America and it was a firm reminder that institutions like ours, built for the long-term, need to design for change. For us, it means keeping our cultural materials safe, private and it means preparing for a Web that may face greater restrictions
31.
Spring Storm
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Spring Storm is a 1937 play written by American playwright Tennessee Williams. Tennessee Williams wrote Spring Storm when he was years old, in 1937. Spring Storm received poor reviews in Williams’s playwriting course, and it did not receive its first production until 1995 in Berkeley, the European premiere took place at the Royal & Derngate Northampton on 15 October 2009, running alongside Beyond the Horizon by Eugene ONeill. Both productions subsequently transferred to the Royal National Theatre in 2010 to the Cottesloe Theatre, written and rewritten between 1937 and 1938, this full-length play depicts life and conflicted love in a small Mississippi Delta town during the Great Depression. The plays original title was “April is the Cruelest Month, ” which was also the line from T. S. Eliots poem “The Waste Land. Of course, it is frightening and discouraging to work on a thing. There is still a chance they may be all of them-- I have to cling to that chance. Plans on leaving Mississippi with Heavenly to find construction work, Heavenly Critchfield An upper class woman with family lineage, but her family has since run out of money. Does not want to leave Mississippi with Dick, although she has lost her virginity to him, decides to marry Arthur Shannon who does have money, but fails and is left alone. The stage notes say that, “The important thing about Heavenly is that she is physically attractive and she has the natural and yet highly-developed charm that is characteristic of girls of pure southern stock. She is frankly sensuous without being coarse, fiery-tempered and yet disarmingly sweet and her nature is confusing to herself and to all who know her. She wears a skirt and sweater with a bright-colored scarf. ”Arthur Shannon An upper class man whose family still has money. Went to England for school after being bullied by Dick as a child, has come back to Mississippi and plans on marrying Heavenly. After having sex with Hertha, he himself for her suicide. Dan Isaac, editor of the copy of Spring Storm, says that, “Williams designed Arthur Shannon, as a Portrait of the Artist as a Young Heterosexual. ”The play opens with the stage directions setting the scenery and state layout, as, The curtain rises to reveal a high. On its verge are two old trees whose leafless branches have been twisted by the winds. At first the scene has a quality, the sky flooded with deep amber light from the sunset. But as it progresses, it changes to one of violence to form a dramatic contrast between Heavenlys scene and Herthas
32.
Not About Nightingales
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Not About Nightingales is a three-act play written by Tennessee Williams in 1938. The play itself focuses on a group of inmates who go on a strike in attempt to better their situation. There is also a love story, with the characters Eva, the new secretary at the prison, and Jim. Williams gained inspiration for the play after reading newspaper accounts of inmates who suffocated in a room in a Pennsylvania prison. Although the play was written in the 1930s, it wasn’t discovered until the late 1990s when Vanessa Redgrave made it her personal mission to track it down. The Play had its premier at The Alley Theatre in Houston in 1998. The play begins outside the office with Eva Crane and Mrs. Bristol. Eva is there for a job interview as the new secretary for the Warden, moments after the scene begins, Jim walks through towards the Warden’s office and informs the women that the Warden is out inspecting the grounds, and may not be back for a while. Mrs. Bristol can’t stay and leaves the food on the Warden’s desk, Warden Whalen enters in an unannounced, brash way. He is a short, fat, yet powerful man with a presence. Eva begins to beg him for a job, however the Warden doesn’t want to hear it, saying “A business executive is not interested in your personal misfortunes. ”In the end, after careful consideration, meanwhile, Jim is being escorted back to his cell. Jim is a convict who helps out the Warden during the day and he enjoys the job because it gets him out of his cell all day. At nights when he returns, his cellmates are constantly calling him such as Allison. The next morning Mrs. Bristol returns to see the Warden and she explains how she hasn’t heard from her son in a while and is getting worried. The Warden explains, in a manner, that her son had gone insane and had to be killed. The next day, Eva talks to Jim and asks him about the conditions at the prison. Jim says the food is terrible, however the Warden enters and this story is too much for Eva as she ends up fainting at the end of the scene. Down in the prison, the begin to get pains in their stomachs and have a hard time getting to sleep
33.
Orpheus Descending
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Orpheus Descending is a play by Tennessee Williams. It was first presented on Broadway in 1957 where it enjoyed a run with only modest success. It was revived on Broadway in 1989, directed by Peter Hall and starring Vanessa Redgrave, the production ran for 13 previews and 97 performances. The play is a rewrite of a play by Williams called Battle of Angels. Williams wrote the character of Myra Torrance for Tallulah Bankhead, but she turned down the role, saying The play is impossible, darling, the production premiered on Broadway the same year, starring Miriam Hopkins. It was the first produced play written by Williams and by his account it failed spectacularly, Battle of Angels remained un-produced in New York for 34 years, until the Circle Repertory Company opened their sixth season with it in 1974, directed by Marshall W. Mason. The story is set in a dry goods store in a southern town marked, in the play, by conformity, sexual frustration, narrowness. Into this scene steps Val, a man with a guitar, a snakeskin jacket, a questionable past. He gets a job in the dry goods store run by a woman named Lady. Lady has a past and passions of her own and she finds herself attracted to Val and to the possibility of new life he seems to offer. It is an antidote to her loveless marriage and boring. The play describes the awakening of passion, love, and life – as well as its consequences for Val. The play deals with passion, its repression and its attempted recovery, on another level, it is also about trying to live bravely and honestly in a fallen world. The play is replete with lush, poetic dialogue and imagery, on the stage, the opening sections seem somewhat lacking in dramatic movement, but the play picks up power as the characters are developed and it moves to its climax. Val, representing Orpheus, represents the forces of energy and eros, dolly and Beulah, two gossiping housewives tell each other that Jabe Torrance has just had surgery in Memphis but is dying. Carol Cutrere comes in a later and Val, a roaming singer and musician. Carol flirts with Val, insisting she has met him before in New Orleans, Lady agrees to hire Val as a clerk. After a few weeks, Val tells Lady about his wild past in New Orleans, when David enters the store, Lady tells David that she aborted his child when he left her
34.
The Glass Menagerie
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The Glass Menagerie is a five-character memory play by Tennessee Williams that premiered in 1944 and catapulted Williams from obscurity to fame. The play has strong elements, featuring characters based on Williams himself, his histrionic mother. In writing the play, Williams drew on a short story. The play premiered in Chicago in 1944, the Glass Menagerie was Williamss first successful play, he went on to become one of Americas most highly regarded playwrights. Amanda Wingfield A faded Southern belle, abandoned by her husband, Tom Wingfield Amandas son, and younger brother to sister, Laura. Tom works at a warehouse to support his family but is frustrated by his job. He struggles to write for he is sleep-deprived and annoyed, yet, he escapes from reality through nightly excursions, apparently to the movies but also to local bars. Tom feels both obligated toward yet burdened by his family and longs to escape, Laura Wingfield Amandas daughter and Toms older sister. A childhood illness has left her with a limp, and she has a mental fragility and she has created a world of her own symbolized by her collection of glass figurines. The unicorn may represent Laura because it is unique and fragile, Jim OConnor An old high-school acquaintance of Tom and Laura. Jim was an athlete and actor during his days at Soldan High School. Subsequent years have been kind to Jim, however. His hope to shine again is conveyed by his study of public speaking, Mr. Wingfield Amandas absentee husband and Laura’s and Tom’s father. Mr. Wingfield was a man, full of charm. Although he does not appear onstage, Mr. Wingfield is frequently referred to by Amanda, the unseen character appears to incorporate elements of Williamss own father. The play is introduced to the audience by Tom, the narrator and protagonist, as a play based on his recollection of his mother Amanda. Because the play is based on memory, Tom cautions the audience that what they see may not be precisely what happened. Amanda Wingfield, a faded Southern belle of middle age, shares a dingy St. Louis apartment with her son Tom, in his early twenties, and his slightly older sister, Laura
35.
A Streetcar Named Desire
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A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1947 play written by American playwright Tennessee Williams that received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948. The play opened on Broadway on December 3,1947, and closed on December 17,1949, the Broadway production was directed by Elia Kazan and starred Jessica Tandy, Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, and Kim Hunter. The London production opened in 1949 with Bonar Colleano, Vivien Leigh, the drama A Streetcar Named Desire is often regarded as among the finest plays of the 20th century, and is considered by many to be one of Williams greatest. Blanche is in her thirties, and with no money, she has nowhere else to go, Blanche tells Stella that she has taken a leave of absence from her English teaching position because of her nerves. Blanche laments the shabbiness of her sister’s two-room flat and she finds Stanley loud and rough, eventually referring to him as common. Stanley, in return, does not care for Blanches manners, Stanley later questions Blanche about her earlier marriage. Blanche had married when she was young, but her husband died, leaving her widowed. The memory of her dead husband causes Blanche some obvious distress, Stanley, worried that he has been cheated out of an inheritance, demands to know what happened to Belle Reve, once a large plantation and the DuBois family home. Blanche hands over all the documents pertaining to Belle Reve, while looking at the papers, Stanley notices a bundle of letters that Blanche emotionally proclaims are personal love letters from her dead husband. For a moment, Stanley seems caught off guard over her proclaimed feelings, afterwards, he informs Blanche that Stella is going to have a baby. The night after Blanche’s arrival, during one of Stanley’s poker parties, Blanche meets Mitch and his courteous manner sets him apart from the other men. Their chat becomes flirtatious and friendly, and Blanche easily charms him, suddenly becoming upset over multiple interruptions, Stanley explodes in a drunken rage and strikes Stella. Blanche and Stella take refuge with the neighbor, Eunice. When Stanley recovers, he cries out from the courtyard below for Stella to come back by calling her name until she comes down. After Stella returns to Stanley, Blanche and Mitch sit at the bottom of the steps in the courtyard, Blanche is bewildered that Stella would go back with him after such violence. The next morning, Blanche rushes to Stella and describes Stanley as an animal, though Stella assures Blanche that she. Stanley overhears the conversation but keeps silent, when Stanley comes in, Stella hugs and kisses him, letting Blanche know that her low opinion of Stanley does not matter. As the weeks pass, Blanche and Stanley continue to not get along, Blanche has hope in Mitch, and tells Stella that she wants to go away with him and not be anyone’s problem
36.
Summer and Smoke
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Summer and Smoke is a two-part, thirteen-scene 1948 play by Tennessee Williams, originally titled Chart of Anatomy when Williams began work on it in 1945. The phrase summer and smoke comes from the Hart Crane poem Emblems of Conduct in the 1926 collection White Buildings. In 1964, Williams revised the play as The Eccentricities of a Nightingale, by the plays end, however, Buchanan and Alma have traded places philosophically. She has been transformed beyond modesty and she throws herself at him, saying. now I have changed my mind, or the girl who said no, — she doesnt exist any more, she died last summer — suffocated in smoke from something on fire inside her. In 1952, Geraldine Page played the role in a revival directed by José Quintero at the newly founded Circle in the Square Theatre in downtown New York. Her legendary performance is credited with the beginning of the Off-Broadway movement, Page starred in an hour-long adaptation of the play on the radio series Best Plays in 1953 opposite Richard Kiley. She also portrayed Alma Winemiller in the 1961 film version opposite Laurence Harvey earning an Academy Award nomination, the Broadway premiere of the revised version titled The Eccentricities of a Nightingale was staged in 1976. The production was directed by Edwin Sherin, with scenery by William Ritman, costumes by Theoni V. Aldredge, lighting by Marc B. Weiss and it was produced in conjunction with Marc W. Jacobs. The production stage manager was Henry Banister and press was by Seymour Krawitz, Patricia McLean Krawitz and Louise Ment. The show starred Betsy Palmer, Shepperd Strudwick, Grace Carney, Nan Martin, Peter Blaxill, Jen Jones, Patricia Guinan, W. P. Dremak, Thomas Stechschulte, the production ran for 24 performances at the Morosco Theatre. In 1996, the play was revived at the Criterion Center Stage Right in New York, in a directed by David Warren, with Harry Hamlin. Laila Robins and Amanda Plummer have been notable Almas in regional theatre productions and it was nearly sixty years before the London premiere of Summer and Smoke. It opened at the Apollo Theatre on 17 October 2006, the production, directed by Adrian Noble and starring Rosamund Pike and Chris Carmack, first opened at the Nottingham Playhouse in September, prior to its London transfer. It closed ten weeks short of its planned sixteen-week run due to disappointing ticket sales, in January 2007, the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey, presented a revival starring Amanda Plummer and Kevin Anderson, directed by Michael Wilson. In 1961, an adaptation by Paramount Pictures was directed by Peter Glenville and starred Laurence Harvey, Rita Moreno. A television version was produced in 1972, starring Lee Remick, David Hedison, another production, Eccentricities of a Nightingale, starring Blythe Danner and Frank Langella, aired as an episode of the PBS program Great Performances in 1976. An operatic treatment of the play exists as well, composed by Lee Hoiby and it was produced most recently by the Manhattan School of Music Opera Theater in December,2010. Summer and Smoke at the Internet Broadway Database 1953 Best Plays radio adaptation of play at Internet Archive
37.
Camino Real (play)
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Camino Real is a 1953 play by Tennessee Williams. In the introduction to the Penguin edition of the play, Williams directs the reader to use the Anglicized pronunciation Cá-mino Réal. The play takes its title from its setting, alluded to El Camino Real and it is described by Williams as nothing more nor less than my conception of the time and the world I live in. Kilroy, a young American visitor, fulfills some of the functions of the narrator, as does Gutman, manager of the hotel Siete Mares. Williams also employs a large cast of characters including many literary characters who appear in dream sequences. They include Don Quixote and his partner Sancho, Marguerite Camille Gautier, Casanova, Lord Byron, and Esmeralda, among others. Taking place in the plaza, the play goes through a series of confusing and almost logic-defying events, including the revival of the Gypsys daughter s virginity. A main theme that the deals with is coming to terms with the thought of growing older. Camino Real was originated from a Williamss one-act play, Ten Blocks on the Camino Real, with only 60 performances on Broadway, the play was not a mainstream success. Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times called it a strange and disturbing drama, director Elia Kazan later wrote in his memoirs that he had misinterpreted the play by infusing it with excessive naturalism. The first London production opened on April 8th,1957 at the Phoenix Theatre and it starred Denholm Elliott as Kilroy, Diana Wynyard as Marguerite, was directed by Peter Hall and played for two months. Camino Real was presented on television in 1966 by NET, a PBS predecessor, a black-and-white production, it was directed by Jack Landau and starred Martin Sheen, Lotte Lenya, Tom Aldredge, Michael Baseleon, Albert Dekker, and Hurd Hatfield. Stewart, Susan Tyrrell, and Clifford David, in his review for The New York Times, critic Clive Barnes said, there are people who think that Camino Real was Tennessee Williamss best play, and I believe that they are right. It is a play that seems to have torn out of a human soul, a tale told by an idiot signifying a great deal of suffering. The UKs Royal Shakespeare Company revived the play at the Swan Theatre in 1996, the production was directed by Steven Pimlott, and starred Leslie Phillips as Gutman, Peter Egan as Casanova and Susannah York as Camille. Reviewing the production in the New York Times, Ben Brantley wrote that, in his art as in his life, Williams could be grotesquely excessive and sloppy. But whatever he wrote, he tore it straight from his soul, in January 2009, director David Herskovits staged a new production at the Ohio Theater in SoHo. This short version, which focused on Kilroy as the American boxer, was a re-imagination of the original one-act play Ten Blocks on the Camino Real
