Blog Post
Author Birthdays: Shakespeare, Marsh, Laxness
by marshd
April 23rd marks the birthday of authors William Shakespeare, Ngaio Marsh, and Halldor Laxness.
William Shakespeare was and is probably the most well-known English poet and playwright in history. You may know him for writing Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Love's Labour's Lost, and Twelfth Night. Almost all of his plays have been produced on stage, in film, or both.
Shakespeare's lesser known works, though I feel silly saying that at all, may be some of his many histories, like Coriolanus, about a Roman leader; Troilus and Cressida, a story of the Trojan War; Cymbeline, about a legendary British king and his daughter; or The Life and Death of King John, about the famed signer of the Magna Carta.
Ngaio Marsh was a writer from New Zealand who is probably best known for her detective novels. Her name may also be familiar to those who watch the Inspector Alleyn Mysteries, since the show is based on her works about Roderick Alleyn.
Marsh also wrote short stories, which we have collected in Alleyn And Others: The Collected Short Fiction Of Ngaio Marsh. She wrote so many books that I don't know, really, which one to talk about, so I'm going with the best title: Killer Dolphin, an Alleyn mystery set in the Dolphin Theater.
Halldor Laxness was an Icelandic author and Nobel Prize winner. He wrote three rounds of stories that focused on the Icelandic people: Salka Valka, Independent People, and The Light of the World (also called World Light).
Laxness also wrote The Fish Can Sing, called by the publisher "a poignant coming-of-age tale marked with his peculiar blend of light irony and dark humor". It tells the story of an orphan who changes his dream of becoming a fisherman when he meets an Icelandic celebrity.
Blog Post
Sound of Music vs. West Side Story
by Caser
In the early 1960s, Robert Wise directed two of the most popular and beloved musicals ever to dance across the big screen. In 1961, he and choreographer Jerome Robbins dramatized the Bernstein and Sondheim musical, West Side Story. Wise followed this ten-Oscar-winning smash with the historical von Trapp family saga, The Sound of Music, in 1965. These two films tower among the best in the genre some fifty years later, as the late 1960s and beyond trended toward cinema verite styling and a marked dropoff of the sentimentality of these films.
So which is the better Robert Wise directed musical film: West Side Story or Sound of Music?
If you're in the West Side Story camp, you have the timeless Romeo and Juliet tale, elevated by some of the most brilliantly directed and choreographed dance/fight scenes in film history. But if you're in Sound of Music's corner, you have the filmed-on-location, stunning Austrian backdrop, with enormously talented Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer as leads, and songs like My Favorite Things, whose melody shifts like a sea change amidst the song's parade of images. If anybody asks, I'm voting for the latter.
Revisit your favorite or enjoy either movie for the first time by checking the AADL catalog for holdings at your local library.
Blog Post
AXIS Coffeehouse Presents...Sandy Ryder!
by MariaK
This Friday's AXIS Coffeehouse will be a very special one, featuring none other than the Wild Swan Theater's Sandy Ryder. Ms. Ryder will be in the Malletts Creek program room to give all and sundry tips on poetry as performance. We're going to have a lot of fun! The question is, will you be here having fun too?
For more on poetry as performance, try these:
Wham!, a guide to performance poetry for young people.
The Poetry Lounge: The Power of Performance, a DVD demonstrating poetry performance techniques.
The Spoken Word Revolution, a collection of performance poetry, with a CD so you can listen to the poems!
Malletts Creek -- 6:30-8:00 p.m. -- Friday, March 11
Blog Post
Stories from the Islands - Behind the Scenes of "The Cripple of Inishmaan"
by hillary dorwart
Monday March 7, 2011: 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm -- Downtown Library: Multi-Purpose Room
Join U-M Professor Martin Walsh and Druid and Atlantic Theater Company's Sarah Lynch in this interactive discussion of the company's upcoming production of Martin McDonagh's "The Cripple of Inishmaan."
"The Cripple of Inishmaan" is a dark comedy linked to the story of the real life filming of the documentary Man of Aran. The story is set on the small Aran Islands community of Inishmaan off the Western Coast of Ireland in 1934. The inhabitants are excited to learn of a Hollywood film crew's arrival in neighboring Inishmore to make a documentary about life on the islands. "Cripple" Billy Claven, eager to escape the gossip, poverty and boredom of Inishmaan, vies for a part in the film, and to everyone's surprise, the orphan gets his chance.
Learn more about this fantastic production from Ireland before you see the March 10 - 13 University Musical Society performances at the Power Center! For more information about the Power Center performances, visit UMS.org.
Blog Post
Performance Network: The Piano Lesson
by annevm
The Piano Lesson by August Wilson runs March 3 - April 3 at Performance Network. Set in 1936, the story takes place in the Mississippi home of an African American family. The drama is based on a piano that was once traded for two of the family's slave ancestors.
Blog Post
Author Birthdays: Hecht, Sontag, Nabb
by marshd
January 16th marks the birthday of authors Anthony Hecht, Susan Sontag, and Magdalen Nabb.
Anthony Hecht was an American poet. An award was established in his name the year after his death. He became a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1968 for his work The Hard Hours, as well as the 2004 National Medal of Arts winner, which was given posthumously.
Hecht's other collections include The Darkness and the Light, which uses translations of ancient, medieval, and modern poets, and The Transparent Man, which Library Journal said "delivers elegies, lyrics, and dramatic monologs with equal grace and wit".
Susan Sontag was an American novelist, screenwriter, director, playwright, essayist, and activist. Among her awards are the National Book Award for In America and the National Book Critics Circle Award for On Photography.
Sontag's other works include the dramatic play Alice in Bed, the novel I, Etcetera, a collection of essays called AIDS and Its Metaphors, and the comedic film Zelig.
Magdalen Nabb was an English author of both adult and children's fiction. Her most popular works may be those of the Guarnaccia series, which center around the character Marshal Guarnaccia. The books of the series are set in Tuscany and usually center around crimes.
Nabb's children's books include The Enchanted Horse, whose royalties, as her website says, "go to the Brooke Hospital for Animals"; and the Josie Smith series.
Blog Post
Author Birthdays: Krantz, Friel, Smith
by marshd
January 9th marks the birthday of authors Judith Krantz, Brian Friel, and Wilbur A. Smith.
Judith Krantz is an American writer of romance novels. Her first novel, Scruples, was published in 1978. It was made into a TV mini-series in 1980, and then Krantz wrote its sequel, Scruples Two, in 1992.
Krantz also wrote The Mistral's Daughter, which, like Scruples, turned mini-series. In total, seven of her novels were made for TV. Her latest novel, from 1998, is The Jewels of Tessa Kent, was described by Publisher's Weekly as "a romance of motherhood in all its full if tarnished glory".
Brian Friel is an Irish writer, mostly known for his plays. His play Dancing at Lughnasa won the Tony for Best Play in 1992; it tells the story of five sisters living in poverty in Ireland. It was made into a movie starring Meryl Streep in 1998.
Friel also wrote the drama Molly Sweeney, which in two acts tells the story of a woman blind since birth who undergoes surgery to try to restore her sight. The play is told in only monologues, and was awarded the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Play.
Wilbur A. Smith is a novelist, born in Northern Rhodesia, and now living in London. He has written three series, and many standalone novels, including Elephant Song, which Publisher's Weekly has called "a fast-paced melodrama of greed and political corruption".
Smith's latest work is Assegai, a part of both his Courtney and Ballantyne series; it is set in pre-WWI Kenya, and is his 32nd novel set in Africa. He also has a book coming out next year, Those in Peril, which you can read about on his website.
Blog Post
Author Birthdays: Fry, Bester, Moorcock
by marshd
December 18th marks the birthday of authors Christopher Fry, Alfred Bester, and Michael Moorcock.
Christopher Fry was an English playwright, best known for the romantic comedy "The Lady's Not for Burning", which resembles Shakespeare's comedies, but contains a sense of post-WWII sentiments. It is considered the "spring" play out of his seasonal series, which also includes autumn "Venus Observed", winter "The Dark is Light Enough", and summer "A Yard of Sun".
Fry also wrote the plays "The Boy with a Cart" (a celebration of Saint Cuthman of Steyning) and "A Phoenix Too Frequent" (a comedy based on Petronius's tale of the Ephesian widow).
Alfred Bester was an American science fiction writer and winner of the FIRST Hugo Award for his book The Demolished Man, set in a futuristic world filled with telepathy; it is often called a precursor to the cyberpunk subgenre.
Bester's other works include the novels Psycho Shop, written in conjunction with fellow sci-fi writer Roger Zelazny, and The Stars My Destination, an adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. He also wrote quite a few short stories, collected in titles like Virtual Unrealities.
Michael Moorcock is an English science fiction and fantasy and literary writer, and winner of about 15 awards. Among those, I will mention the Nebula Award for Behold the Man and the World Fantasy Award for Gloriana.
Many of Moorcock's series and standalone novels are in a similar world/universe grouping known as The Eternal Champion. Among these are works like The Jewel in the Skull of the Hawkmoon series and Elric: The Stealer of Souls, which is a collection of (some of the) stories with the character Elric.
Blog Post
Skyline High: A Piece of My Heart
by annevm
History and drama will be in the spotlight when Skyline performs A Piece of My Heart Nov. 19, 20, and 21. The play by Shirley Lauro tells the true stories of six women sent to serve in the Vietnam War and what they faced when they came home. It has been performed more than 800 times, including a performance in Washington, D.C., when the Statue to Vietnam Nurses was dedicated.
Blog Post
Pulitzer-Winning Play Adapted for the Silver Screen
by muffy
The recently released film For Colored Girls is based on the 1975 Pulitzer-winning play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange, long considered to be a landmark piece in African American literature.
Billed as "a theatrical celebration, in verse and prose, of being female and black, it incorporates the triumphs, joys, griefs, and losses of black women in America".
The original text is in the form for a "choreopoem" - consisting of a series of 20 poems. It is performed by a cast of seven women characters, each of whom is known only by a color. Written, directed and produced by Tyler Perry, the film features Janet Jackson, Whoopi Goldberg, Phylicia Rashad, Thandie Newton, Loretta Devine, Anika Noni Rose, among others.
Check out the movie reviews by New York Times and Variety.