The Spectator: Talk About Movies and Plays With Those Who Made Them - by Studs Terkel
A collection of interviews with screen and stage actors, directors, playwrights and critics, Terkel's latest richly entertaining oral history is a departure from his bestselling interview books on weightier themes (Working; Hard Times; Race). Here, Terkel offers interviewsAmany of them reading almost like monologues, Terkel says so littleAfirst heard on the Chicago radio program he has hosted for the past 45 years. Many of the exchanges feel dated, and there is an awful lot of chitchat. Nevertheless, the book's cast of characters is stellarAEdward Albee, Eugene Ionesco, Lillian Gish, Zero Mostel, Pauline Kael, Marlon Brando, Uta Hagen, Tallulah Bankhead and August Wilson, among othersAand Terkel has a knack for pushing buttons, opening floodgates, capturing his subjects in illuminating moments. "I've always regarded myself as an incomplete person," says Tennessee Williams in a particularly revealing passage. "Consequently, I've always been interested in my kind of people: people that have to fight for their reason... people who come close to cracking." Arthur Miller explains how the nation has gone soft: "In the '30s, people, in order to believe they were real Americans, believed they were responsible for their own fate." We also get Agnes DeMille on choreographing Oklahoma, Ian McKellen on the modernness of Shakespeare, composer/ pianist Eubie Blake (who wrote the first all-black musical, Shuffle Along) on his parents' tribulations as slaves and Kenneth Tynan on British class prejudice. A disarming, invigorating look at show biz, this quirky book closes, on a fittingly eclectic note, with Burr Tillstrom, creator of the TV puppets on Kukla, Fran and OllieAwhich he duly impersonates during the interview. (Sept.)
Dramatists Play Service has announced the addition of McNeal, the bold and thought-provoking new play by Pulitzer Prize-winner Ayad Akhtar, to its distinguished catalog. The play is now available for licensing worldwide.
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Music Theatre International (MTI) and Broadway Education Alliance Inc. has announced that the American Camp Association NY/NJ Conference, that MTI will begin offering The Camp Broadway Collection, an all-new, customizable, experiential learning program designed to teach children the fundamentals of musical theatre.
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Craft Recordings celebrates the enduring, 75-year legacy of PEANUTS, with an expanded reissue of Jazz Impressions of a Boy Named Charlie Brown. Arriving April 4th, the collection features 11 never-before-heard outtakes plus the original album.
International Literary Properties, the global company that invests in, acquires, and manages literary estates, has acquired Ellen Raskin’s literary estate. Learn more!
The physical CD and two vinyl editions of the Swept Away album, titled “Rough Seas” and a limited edition “Devil’s In My Head” Blood Moon red pressing, will be released this spring. Learn more!
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University Press of Kentucky plans to release a revised, third edition of 'Trapped! The Story of Floyd Collins' by the late historian Robert K. Murray and renowned cave explorer Roger W. Brucker, on April 15.
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South Street Seaport Museum's monthly book club will continue in February. Seaport Museum staff and special guests will stir up lively discussions informed by our shared love of literature, history, and preservation.
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