[pic] James Baldwin (1924-1987) - born in New York, foster son of a clergyman and factory worker; the step-father, an evangelical preacher, struggled to support a large family and demanded the most rigorous religious behavior from his nine children; - Baldwin was an excellent student who sought escape from his environment through literature, movies and theatre; during the summer of his 14th birthday he underwent a dramatic religious conversion, partly in response to his nascent sexuality and partly as a further buffer against the ever-present temptations of drugs and crime; - youth minister at Fireside Pentecostal Assembly NYC 1938-1942 (storefront fundamental religion); gradually lost his desire to preach as he began to question
Reasons to be pretty by Neil Labute reasons to be pretty is a play by Neil LaBute, his first to be staged on Broadway. The plot centers on four young working class friends and lovers who become increasingly dissatisfied with their dead-end lives and each other. Following The Shape of Things and Fat Pig, it is the final installment of a trilogy that focuses on modern day obsession with physical appearance. [1] Produced by MCC Theater and directed by Terry Kinney, the play premiered at the off-Broadway Lucille Lortel Theater in Greenwich Village on June 2, 2008 and ran through July 5. The cast included Piper Perabo, Pablo Schreiber, Alison Pill, and Thomas Sadoski.
In 1952, Shepherd Mead's satirical book, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, became a bestseller. Playwright Willie Gilbert and fellow playwright Jack Weinstock created a dramatic interpretation in 1955 that was unproduced for five years. [3] Agent Abe Newborn brought the work to the attention of producers Cy Feuer and Ernest Martin, with the intention of retooling it as a musical. [3] Feuer and Martin had great success with the 1950 adaptation of Guys and Dolls and brought in the creative team from that show to work on How to....[3] Abe Burrows and Frank Loesser set to work on the new adaptation, with rehearsals beginning in August 1961. [3] Burrows collaborated on the book with Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert, also serving as
JadeCheng The author of “An Inspector Calls” is J.B Priestly. This play was written in 1945 however set in 1912, before the two world wars and the sinking of the Titanic. The author explores the different views of responsibilties through each character. J.B Priestly begins the play around a dinner table, celebrating Shiela and Gerald’s engagement party, while Mr Birling is talking about how “It’s every man for himself”. Imediantly showing Mr Birling’s personality, which is selfish.
Sarah Boney HUM1020 #81829 Dr Simmons Journal #3 Dante’s Inferno Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265. On January 27, 1302, 37 year old poet and politician Dante Alighieri was exiled from Florence, for his political beliefs, where he served as one of six priors governing the city. Dante's political activities included the banishing of several rivals and led to his own banishment. He wrote his masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, as a bitter wanderer, seeking protection for his family in town after town. “Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood… How I came to it I cannot rightly say, so drugged and loose with sleep had I become when first I wandered from the True Way” (Canto 1).
He took refuge in writing poetry; his mother tried to bolster his creative side by enrolling him in Harlem's 127th Street Ensemble, which was the site of Tupac's acting debut, as Travis in the play A Raisin in the Sun. It was here that the acting "bug" bit him. "I remember thinking, 'This is the best shit in the world!'" he
The reason Miller chose the subject of false accusation is most likely because the people of his generation accused him of involvement with the Communist party which was analogous to what witchcraft would have been in the late seventeenth century. Based entirely on the Salem witch trials, The Crucible does a superb job of turning that devastating time period into an entertaining yet tragic play. Arthur Miller, born on October 17, 1915, in New York City, was a famous American playwright who composed many literary masterpieces. Born into a wealthy family, Miller was accustomed to having whatever he desired, that is, until the Great Depression caused his family to go bankrupt. During this time of uncertainty, Miller worked several jobs to earn enough money to pay for his college.
At the beginning of the 19th century, a Jew from England named Israel Zangwill wrote a play whose storyline has long been forgotten, but whose central theme has not. The play depicted the life of a Russian-Jewish immigrant family, the Quixanos. David Quixano has survived a pogrom, which killed his mother and sister, and he wishes to forget this horrible event. He composes an “American Symphony” and wants to look forward to a society free of ethnic divisions and hatred, rather than backward at his traumatic past. Zangwill's production was entitled "The Melting Pot" and its message still holds a tremendous power on the national imagination – the promise that all immigrants can be transformed into Americans and the blending together of different races into a unified culture full of democracy, freedom
Dobrev, Alexander 10/6 19.04.2011 In Actual Case The American writer Arthur Miller was born in 1915 in New York, he graduated in the University of Michigan and won the University of Michigan Hopwood Awards with his two plays: "Honours at Dawn" and "No Villain" and the Pulitzer prize with "the Death of Salesman". But indisputably one of his most important book is "The Crucible" written in 1953 during the hysteria the Americans suffered because of believing and mostly accusing each other of being communists. The book has much in common with that time period, Arthur Miller tried to connect the theme of witchcraft with the
These early texts would be published in Notes of a Native Son in 1955. He would choose such title in clear reference to his friend Richard Wright’s 1908 – 1960 novels Native Son in 1940. Eventually James Baldwin would become aware of his homosexuality and in 1948, disgusted by the amount of prejudice against both blacks and homosexuals in the United States, he would leave to Paris in his mid-twenties where he would spend virtually the rest of his life. James Baldwin is widely considered as one of the greatest writers of his generation. He would be very influenced by the situation of blacks in his country as well as his personal experience of poverty when he lived in Harlem.