Meet the People - 1939 - Regional (US) Articles Page 6

On Thursday, May 16, 2019 there will be two staged readings in New York City of the Broadway-bound new musical, DANCERS AT A WATERFALL, with book by Richard Maltby, Jr. and Karen Hartman, lyrics by Richard Maltby, Jr. and music by David Shire, based on the novel, 'Behind the Painting' by Siburapha.

NATIVE SON, a novel written in 1940 by Richard Wright, tells the story of 20-year of Bigger Thomas, an African American youth living in utter poverty in a poor area on Chicago's South Side in 1939. While not apologizing for Bigger's crimes, Wright portrays a systemic inevitability behind them, making the case that there is no escape from his destiny since he is the inevitable product of the society in which he has lived since birth, faced by expectations imposed upon him by others tasked to teach him the proper way for a Black man to live in society. It is often said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. This is certainly the case in Wright's original story which could have been written today, given the similar news stories filling the airwaves right now involving police beatings of Black men and gun violence leading to senseless murders.

Actress Fay McKenzie Waldman passed away peacefully in her sleep on the morning of April 16th at the age of 101. She was born February 19, 1918 into a show business family where she was the youngest of two sisters and an actress cousin, and made her screen debut at only ten weeks old in "Station Content" (1918) in which she was carried in the arms of Gloria Swanson. Her parents, Eva & Bob "Pops" McKenzie were already veteran performers and apparently wanted their daughter to get an early start in films. She nearly stole the show from Oliver Hardy as "the baby" in the Alice Howell short "Distilled Love" (filmed in 1918 but released two years later). By the time she was six, Fay was considered an old hand, having played diverse parts in her father's stock company. Among her early films was the 1924 Photoplay Medal Winner, "The Dramatic Life of Abraham Lincoln." 

Oyster Mill Playhouse is working diligently to bring you their next production, The Last Night Of Ballyhoo. Set to debut on April 26th, this play transports us back to December of 1939 in Atlanta, Georgia, where the Freitag family is preparing for the annual Ballyhoo ball. As if the excitement surrounding the ball isn't enough, this year's celebration happens to coincide with the premiere of Gone with the Wind...

Casa Mañana Theatre presents The Wizard of Oz, sponsored by Frank Kent Cadillac as part of the 2018-2019 Children's Theatre season. Tickets are on sale now.

The Guthrie Theater (Joseph Haj, artistic director) today announced the nine productions of its 2019 2020 subscription season: Tennessee Williams' classic family drama The Glass Menagerie; Shakespeare's rollicking comedy Twelfth Night; an adaptation of Emma based on the Jane Austen novel; and Kander and Ebb's musical Cabaret will grace the Guthrie's signature Wurtele Thrust Stage while the McGuire Proscenium Stage's lineup will include Robert Harling's female-driven comedy Steel Magnolias; the regional premiere of Noura, Heather Raffo's complex tale of identity; Anne Bogart's acclaimed production of Euripides' The Bacchae; Karen Zacar as' comedic telenovela Destiny of Desire; and Lynn Nottage's Pulitzer Prize-winning Sweat.

Irish Repertory Theatre announced today special events and programming for the month of February as part of the The Sean O'Casey Season, celebrating 30 years of Irish Repertory Theatre.

Amilcare Ponchielli's opera La Gioconda (no link whatsoever with the painting in the Louvre) is one of those works too rarely represented despite its obvious qualities. Once the most successful opera between Verdi's Aida (1871) and Otello (1887), it is now considered a work stylistically so heterogeneous and both vocally and scenically so demanding that few opera houses try their hand at it. La Monnaie takes on the challenge and invites conductor Paolo Carignani and stage director Olivier Py to revive the whole grand opera behind 'The Dance of the Hours'.

The San Diego Center for Jewish Culture (CJC) announced today the annual San Diego Jewish International Film Festival will return for its 29th anniversary, Thursday, Feb. 7 through Sunday, Feb. 17, 2019. The festival showcases a selection of the best contemporary Jewish-related films across multiple genres and aims to educate and illuminate the diverse Jewish experience through evocative, independent narrative and documentary films.

The historic Drexel Theatre today announced the lineup for its 2019 America's Greatest Films series, made possible through a generous gift from PNC Bank. Launched in 2017 as a thank you to the community, the series offers free screenings of some of the nation's most beloved classic films on the first Tuesday of each month with a pre-screening introduction and post-screening Q&A.

The Morris Choral Society (MCS) will present their annual Holiday Concert entitled "Songs Earthly and Divine" in two performances, Saturday December 8 at 8PM and Sunday December 9 at 3PM at St. Virgil's Parish, 250 Speedwell Avenue in Morris Plains, New Jersey. Tickets range from $25 for General Admission, $20 Seniors (60+) and $15 Students and may be purchased online at www.morrischoralsociety.org .

The plot brings ten disparate characters together on an island off the coast of Devon.

On opening night for the Minnesota Opera (MNOP), the audience in attendance became curiously quieter and quieter, silent, when the curtain rose at the Ordway Center on the company's contemporary award winning opera 'Silent Night.' Commissioned by MNOP in 2011, the music by Kevin Putts combined with a libretto by Mark Campbell transported the opera house to Christmas, 1914, the beginning of World War I, Based on Christian Carlson's screenplay for the film 'Joyeux Noel,' the opera travels to a small, bloodied war zone in a tiny Belgium village along the French boarder, which centers the attention while profoundly affecting those in the audience.

The Media Theatre Has An All-star Philly Cast In 'the Wizard Of Oz' This Holiday Season

Leading California all-natural chicken producer Foster Farms introduces Bold Bites, a new on-the-go chicken snack inspired by bold flavors. Bold Bites are fully cooked, ready-to-eat chicken breast pieces delivering 15 grams of protein per serving. Conveniently packaged in grab-and-go, single serve pouches, the new product line includes five varieties - Cajun, Chile Verde, Korean BBQ, Caribbean Jerk, and Parmesan Garlic and is free of hormones, artificial colors and flavors, and nitrates. Bold Bites provide a quick, stand-alone boost of energy or can be added to salads, wraps, tacos and soup to give a mouthwatering pop of bold flavor.

Santa Fe is known for its art. It is widely known that the City Different is home to world class visual and performing arts; it is also home to a school that educates high schoolers striving to be part of the next generation of world class artists. That school is the New Mexico School for the Arts, and I had the privilege recently to sit in on a rehearsal of their production of You Can't Take It With You, as well as chat with director and faculty member Barbara Hatch about the show and NMSA in general.

Bergen County Players (BCP), one of America's longest-running little theater companies, is proud to present in its 86th season the 1937 Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy, You Can't Take It With You. Written by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, You Can't Take It With You will be performed at the Little Firehouse Theatre in Oradell from October 20th through November 10th, 2018.

'What matters is not whether a play is light-hearted or serious, but--be it comedic or otherwise--whether it speaks to people about their problems, how it speaks to them, what impact it has on them. . . We wish only to put on plays that meet certain standards of urgency, that are intellectually penetrating, complex, challenging, and powerful.'

AlphaNYC Theater Company's THE WIZARD OF OZ provides family fun on a shoestring.

Citadel Theatre Company, an Equity-affiliated professional company performing in Lake Forest, IL, has announced its 16thseason. The four-show subscription season will include the Lillian Hellman classic THE LITTLE FOXES, a holiday production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT, a contemporary American comedy-drama to be announced, and the world premiere of Ross Lehman's SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY, a one-man musical remembrance about his parents and their WWII era romance.

Tickets go on sale July 1 for the Gainesville Theatre Alliance's (GTA) new theatrical season which will take patrons down the yellow brick road, on the high seas, to 1930s Berlin, backstage during a farce, and into training season.

The Eisemann Center and the City of Richardson announced the 2018-2019 Season of Eisemann Center Presents (ECP) at the Annual Season Preview Party on Thursday, May 10, 2019. The season includes our two full subscription series: Jeffrey Siegel's Keyboard Conversations with a total of four concerts; and the Family Theatre Series with four productions and the accompanying immersive children's program Eisemann Extras. In addition we have 11 Music & Dance performances featuring a diverse mix of programming and artists; five Theatre & Comedy productions with 18 performances, including new works by returning artists Jaston Williams, Steve Solomon and Pat Hazell along with four Family & Broadway Specials productions with eight performances.

The Juilliard School today announced that alumnus Wynton Marsalis, trumpeter, director of Juilliard Jazz Studies, and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, will address the graduates at the school's 113th commencement ceremony, which takes place Friday, May 18, 2018, at 11am in Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center. Mr. Marsalis received an honorary doctor of music degree from Juilliard in 2006. This will be the final commencement for Juilliard President Joseph W. Polisi, who has had a long association with Mr. Marsalis and asked that he be the commencement speaker. In July, Damian Woetzel will begin as the school's seventh president.

Lou Volpe, the retired theatre education pioneer was recently inducted into the prestigious Bucks County Playhouse Hall of Fame, following such honorees as Angela Lansbury, Oscar Hammerstein and Shirley Jones. A formal ceremony was held on April 14 at the historic playhouse. Volpe, whose career is the inspiration behind "Rise," the new TV series on NBC, was heralded for his life's work as a high school drama teacher at Harry S. Truman High School in Levittown, PA. During his tenure there, he transformed this Bucks County community with the magic of theater.