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Artist Descending A Staircase
''Artist Descending a Staircase'' is a radio play by Tom Stoppard, first broadcast by the BBC in 1972, and later adapted for live theatre. The play centres on a murder mystery involving an artist who dies from falling down a set of stairs. The play is a humorous exploration of the meaning and purpose of art. The title alludes to Marcel Duchamp's 1912 painting ''Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2''. Plot The play opens with the sound of the artist, Donner, falling down the stairs. The other two roommates, Martello and Beauchamp, enter and find him at the bottom of the staircase. Beauchamp, an artist whose focus is on the sounds of daily life, examines a recording of the sounds of Donner's fall. The pair decides that a murderer must have awakened Donner from his sleep and then pushed him down the stairs to his death. Martello and Beauchamp accuse each other of the crime. The following scenes flash back to several different years at least 50 years in the past. This part of the play ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard (born , 3 July 1937) is a Czech born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and political freedom, often delving into the deeper philosophical thematics of society. Stoppard has been a playwright of the National Theatre and is one of the most internationally performed dramatists of his generation. Stoppard was knighted for his contribution to theatre by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997. Born in Czechoslovakia, Stoppard left as a child refugee, fleeing imminent Nazi occupation. He settled with his family in Britain after the war, in 1946, having spent the previous three years (1943–1946) in a boarding school in Darjeeling in the Indian Himalayas. After being educated at schools in Nottingham and Yorkshire, Stoppard became a journalist, a drama critic and then, in 1960, a playwright. Stoppard's most prominent plays include ''R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Murder Mystery
Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, often a murder. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as historical fiction or science fiction, but the boundaries are indistinct. Crime fiction has multiple subgenres, including detective fiction (such as the whodunit), courtroom drama, hard-boiled fiction, and legal thrillers. Most crime drama focuses on crime investigation and does not feature the courtroom. Suspense and mystery are key elements that are nearly ubiquitous to the genre. History The ''One Thousand and One Nights'' (''Arabian Nights'') contains the earliest known examples of crime fiction. One example of a story of this genre is the medieval Arabic tale of "The Three Apples", one of the tales narrated by Scheherazade in the ''Arabia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marcel Duchamp
Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, as one of the three artists who helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture. Duchamp has had an immense impact on twentieth-century and twenty first-century art, and he had a seminal influence on the development of conceptual art. By the time of World War I he had rejected the work of many of his fellow artists (such as Henri Matisse) as "retinal" art, intended only to please the eye. Instead, Duchamp wanted to use art to serve the mind. Early life and education Marcel Duchamp was born at Blainville-Crevon in Normandy, France, to Eugène Duchamp and Lucie Duchamp (formerly Lucie Nicolle) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nude Descending A Staircase, No
Nudity is the state of being in which a human is without clothing. The loss of body hair was one of the physical characteristics that marked the biological evolution of modern humans from their hominin ancestors. Adaptations related to hairlessness contributed to the increase in brain size, bipedalism, and the variation in human skin color. While estimates vary, for at least 90,000 years anatomically modern humans were naked. The invention of clothing was part of the transition from being not only anatomically but behaviorally modern. Clothing and body adornments were elements in non-verbal communication reflecting social status and individuality. Through much of history until the late modern period, people might be unclothed in public by necessity or convenience either when engaged in effortful activity, including labor and athletics; or when bathing or swimming. Such functional nudity occurred in groups that were usually but not always segregated by sex. Among ancie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts also featuring. The station describes itself as "the world's most significant commissioner of new music", and through its BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme, New Generation Artists scheme promotes young musicians of all nationalities. The station broadcasts the The Proms, BBC Proms concerts, live and in full, each summer in addition to performances by the BBC Orchestras and Singers. There are regular productions of both classic plays and newly commissioned drama. Radio 3 won the Sony Radio Academy UK Station of the Year Gold Award for 2009 and was nominated again in 2011. According to RAJAR, the station broadcasts to a weekly audience of 1.7 million with a listening share of 1.3% as of September 2022. History Radio 3 is the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Derek Jacobi
Sir Derek George Jacobi (; born 22 October 1938) is an English actor. He has appeared in various stage productions of William Shakespeare such as ''Hamlet'', ''Much Ado About Nothing'', ''Macbeth'', ''Twelfth Night'', ''The Tempest'', ''King Lear'', and ''Romeo and Juliet''. He has also performed in Anton Chekhov's ''Uncle Vanya'' and Edmond Rostand's ''Cyrano de Bergerac (play), Cyrano de Bergerac''. He was given a Knight Bachelor, knighthood for his services to theatre by Elizabeth II, Queen Elizabeth II in 1994 and is a member of the Danish Order of the Dannebrog. In addition to being a founder member of the Royal National Theatre and winning several prestigious theatre awards, Jacobi has also made numerous television appearances, starring in the 1976 adaptation of Robert Graves's ''I, Claudius (TV series), I, Claudius'', for which he won a British Academy of Film and Television Arts, BAFTA; in the titular role in the medieval drama series ''Cadfael (TV series), Cadfael'' ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ian McDiarmid
Ian McDiarmid (; born 11 August 1944) is a Scottish actor and director of stage and screen, best known for portraying the Sith Lord Emperor Sheev Palpatine / Darth Sidious in the ''Star Wars'' multimedia franchise. Making his stage debut in ''Hamlet'' in 1972, McDiarmid joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1974, and has since starred in a number of Shakespeare's plays. He has received an Olivier Award for Best Actor and a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his stage performances. Early life McDiarmid was born in Carnoustie, Angus, Scotland, on 11 August 1944. He became a theatre aficionado when he was five years old, when his father took him to see an act named Tommy Morgan at a theatre in Dundee. In 2004, he stated, "It sort of fascinated me, and it also scared me. All those lights, all that make-up. I said to myself, 'I don't know what this is, but I want it.'" However, fearing his father's disapproval, McDiarmid attended Queen's College, Dundee (now the U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geoffrey Whitehead
Geoffrey Whitehead (born 1 October 1939) is an English actor. He has appeared in a range of television, film and radio roles. In the theatre, he has played at Shakespeare's Globe, St Martin's Theatre and the Bristol Old Vic. Early life Whitehead was born in Grenoside in Sheffield. With his father killed in the Second World War, Whitehead received an RAF benevolent grant which sent him to a minor public school. He later attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he became friends with fellow student John Thaw. Career His film appearances have included ''The Raging Moon'' (1971), ''Kidnapped'' (1971), the vengeful woodsman in ''And Now the Screaming Starts!'' (1972), '' S.O.S. Titanic'' (1979) as shipbuilder Thomas Andrews, ''Inside the Third Reich'' (1982), ''Shooting Fish'' (1997) and '' Love/Loss'' (2010). His television appearances include '' Bulldog Breed'' (1962), ''Z-Cars'' (1964–1965 and 1972–1975), playing two different regular characters, ''Some Mothers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pippa Nixon
Pippa Nixon (born 1980) is an English actress. She trained at Manchester School of Theatre. Nixon has had numerous roles in film and television as well as recording drama for BBC Radio, but she is best known for her critically acclaimed theatre work. During her early successful stage career, she took on a mixture of roles in both contemporary and classical writing. In 2011, after stints at Shakespeare's Globe where she was commended in the Ian Charleson Awards for her portrayal of Jessica in The Merchant of Venice, Nixon moved to the Royal Shakespeare Company to take on a number of lead roles. At the end of 2013, Lyn Gardner writing in The Guardian asked 'could your Shakespearean performance of the year be Pippa Nixon's deliciously giddy Rosalind in ''As You Like It'' at the RSC?' Early theatre career In 2007, Nixon was cast by director Maria Aberg for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Roy Williams’ ''Days of Significance'' which played at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-Upon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duke Of York's Theatre
The Duke of York's Theatre is a West End theatre in St Martin's Lane, in the City of Westminster, London. It was built for Frank Wyatt and his wife, Violet Melnotte, who retained ownership of the theatre until her death in 1935. Designed by the architect Walter Emden, it opened on 10 September 1892 as the Trafalgar Square Theatre, and was renamed to Trafalgar Theatre in 1894. The following year, it became the Duke of York's to honour the future King George V. The theatre's opening show was comic opera ''The Wedding Eve'' by Frédéric Toulmouche. One of the earliest musical comedies, ''Go-Bang'', was a success at the theatre in 1894. In 1900, Jerome K. Jerome's ''Miss Hobbs'' was staged as well as David Belasco's ''Madame Butterfly'', which was seen by Puccini, who later turned it into the famous opera. This was also the theatre where J. M. Barrie's ''Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up'' debuted on 27 December 1904. Many famous British actors have appeared here, includ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James Buchanan Duke established The Duke Endowment and the institution changed its name to honor his deceased father, Washington Duke. The campus spans over on three contiguous sub-campuses in Durham, and a marine lab in Beaufort. The West Campus—designed largely by architect Julian Abele, an African American architect who graduated first in his class at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design—incorporates Gothic architecture with the Duke Chapel at the campus' center and highest point of elevation, is adjacent to the Medical Center. East Campus, away, home to all first-years, contains Georgian-style architecture. The university administers two concurrent schools in Asia, Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore (established in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helen Hayes Theater
The Hayes Theater (formerly the Little Theatre, New York Times Hall, Winthrop Ames Theatre, and Helen Hayes Theatre) is a Broadway theater at 240 West 44th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Named for actress Helen Hayes, the venue is operated by Second Stage Theater. It is the smallest Broadway theater, with 597 seats across two levels. The theater was constructed in 1912 for impresario Winthrop Ames and designed by Ingalls & Hoffman in a neo-Georgian style. The original single-level, 299-seat configuration was modified in 1920, when Herbert J. Krapp added a balcony. The theater has served as a legitimate playhouse, a conference hall, and a broadcasting studio throughout its history. The facade and parts of the theater's interior are New York City landmarks. The facade is made largely of red brick. The main entrance is through an arch on the eastern portion of the ground-floor; the rest of the ground floor is taken up by emergency exits, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
