HOME
*





Awakenings (book)
''Awakenings'' is a 1973 non-fiction book by Oliver Sacks. It recounts the life histories of those who had been victims of the 1920s encephalitis lethargica epidemic. Sacks chronicles his efforts in the late 1960s to help these patients at the Beth Abraham Hospital (now Beth Abraham Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing) in the Bronx, New York. The treatment used the new drug L-DOPA. In 1982, Sacks wrote: The 1976 edition of the book is dedicated to the memory of Sacks' close friend, poet W. H. Auden, and bears an extract from Auden's 1969 poem ''The Art of Healing'': Prior to his death in 1973, Auden wrote, "Have read the book and think it a masterpiece". In 1974 the book won the Hawthornden Prize. In popular culture The book inspired a play, two films, a ballet and an opera: * 1974: the documentary film ''Awakenings'', produced by Duncan Dallas for Yorkshire Television as the first episode and pilot of the British television programme ''Discovery''. The documentary ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Gerald Duckworth
Gerald de l'Etang Duckworth (29 October 1870 – 28 September 1937) was an English publisher, who founded the London company that bears his name. Henry James and John Galsworthy were among the firm's early authors. Background and early life Duckworth was a son of Herbert Duckworth, a London barrister, by his wife Julia Jackson. His father was the youngest son of William Duckworth of Orchardleigh in Somerset. His middle name, ''de l'Etang'', was the surname of one of his mother's ancestors, Antoine de l'Etang, a page to Queen Marie Antoinette. His mother was a niece of Julia Margaret Cameron, the photographer, after whom she was named. Duckworth's father died before his birth. When he was eight his mother married the author Leslie Stephen and had four more children: Virginia Stephen, later the author Virginia Woolf, the painter Vanessa Bell, and two sons, Thoby and Adrian Stephen. Gerald and his elder brother, George were later accused by Virginia and Vanessa of sexually abu ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Documentary Film
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in terms of "a filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception [that remains] a practice without clear boundaries". Early documentary films, originally called "actuality films", lasted one minute or less. Over time, documentaries have evolved to become longer in length, and to include more categories. Some examples are Educational film, educational, observational and docufiction. Documentaries are very Informational listening, informative, and are often used within schools as a resource to teach various principles. Documentary filmmakers have a responsibility to be truthful to their vision of the world without intentionally misrepresenting a topic. Social media platfor ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Opera Theatre Of Saint Louis
Opera Theatre of Saint Louis (OTSL) is an American summer opera festival held in St. Louis, Missouri. Typically four operas, all sung in English, are presented each season, which runs from late May to late June. Performances are accompanied by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, which is divided into two ensembles, each covering two of the operas, for the season. The company's performances are presented in the Loretto-Hilton Center for the Performing Arts on the campus of Webster University. First seasons and achievements In 1976, Leigh Gerdine, Laurance L. Browning, Jr. and James Van Sant co-founded OTSL. They hired Richard Gaddes, who at the time was working at The Santa Fe Opera, as the company's first Artistic Director. They signed him as full-time General Director in 1978 at the suggestion of Ed Korn, who was brought in as a consultant from the Metropolitan Opera. Gaddes acknowledged that the model for OTSL was The Santa Fe Opera: : That was not a coincidence. I always sa ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Salford, Greater Manchester
Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county after neighbouring Manchester. Salford is located in a meander of the River Irwell which forms part of its boundary with Manchester. The former County Borough of Salford, which also included Broughton, Pendleton and Kersal, was granted city status in 1926. In 1974 the wider Metropolitan Borough of the City of Salford was established with responsibility for a significantly larger region. Historically in Lancashire, Salford was the judicial seat of the ancient hundred of Salfordshire. It was granted a charter by Ranulf de Blondeville, 6th Earl of Chester, in about 1230, making Salford a free borough of greater cultural and commercial importance than its neighbour Manchester.. The Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th cen ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Rambert Dance Company
Rambert (known as Rambert Dance Company before 2014) is a leading British dance company. Formed at the start of the 20th century as a classical ballet company, it exerted a great deal of influence on the development of dance in the United Kingdom, and today, as a contemporary dance company, continues to be one of the world's most renowned dance companies. It has previously been known as the Ballet Club, and the Ballet Rambert. History Dame Marie Rambert (1888–1982), founder of Rambert Dance Company, was born in Warsaw, Poland where she was inspired to become a dancer after seeing Isadora Duncan perform. She went to Paris and after an early career as a recital artist and teacher she was engaged by Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes as assistant to the choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky on ''The Rite of Spring''. She also taught Eurhythmics, Dalcroze Eurythmics to the company. During her year with the Ballets Russes her appreciation of classical ballet developed thus combining a love ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Tobias Picker
Tobias Picker (born July 18, 1954) is an American composer, artistic director, and pianist, noted for his orchestral works ''Old and Lost Rivers'', ''Keys To The City'', and ''The Encantadas'', as well as his operas ''Emmeline'', ''Fantastic Mr. Fox'', ''An American Tragedy'' and ''Awakenings,'' among many other works. Biography 1954–1975: Early years, influences, and education Picker was born in New York City on July 18, 1954, the son of painter and fashion designer Henriette Simon Picker and news-writer Julian Picker, and the cousin of film executive David V. Picker, businessman Harvey Picker, former CEO of The American Film Institute Jean Picker Firstenberg, art-patron Stanley Picker, producer Jimmy Picker, and economist Kenneth Rogoff. At the age of eight, he began composing and studying the piano: Picker started composing in 1962, and, that same year, began corresponding with composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who encouraged his studies. Three years later, Picker was taken ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Robin Williams
Robin McLaurin Williams (July 21, 1951August 11, 2014) was an American actor and comedian. Known for his improvisational skills and the wide variety of characters he created on the spur of the moment and portrayed on film, in dramas and comedies alike, he is regarded as one of the greatest comedians of all time. Williams began performing stand-up comedy in San Francisco and Los Angeles during the mid-1970s, and rose to fame playing the alien Mork in the ABC sitcom ''Mork & Mindy'' (1978–1982). After his first leading film role in ''Popeye'' (1980), he starred in several critically and commercially successful films, including '' The World According to Garp'' (1982), ''Moscow on the Hudson'' (1984), ''Good Morning, Vietnam'' (1987), ''Dead Poets Society'' (1989), ''Awakenings'' (1990), ''The Fisher King'' (1991), '' Patch Adams'' (1998), '' One Hour Photo'' (2002), and ''World's Greatest Dad'' (2009). He also starred in box office successes such as ''Hook'' (1991), '' Aladd ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Robert De Niro
Robert Anthony De Niro Jr. ( , ; born August 17, 1943) is an American actor. Known for his collaborations with Martin Scorsese, he is considered to be one of the best actors of his generation. De Niro is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. In 2009, De Niro received the Kennedy Center Honor, and earned a Presidential Medal of Freedom from U.S. President Barack Obama in 2016. Born in Manhattan in New York City, De Niro studied acting at HB Studio, Stella Adler Conservatory, and Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio. His first major role was in ''Greetings'' (1968), and he gained early recognition with his role as a baseball player in the sports drama ''Bang the Drum Slowly'' (1973). De Niro's first collaboration with Scorsese was ''Mean Streets'' (1973), where he played small-time crook "Johnny Boy". Stardom followed with his role as young Vito Corleon ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Awakenings
''Awakenings'' is a 1990 American drama film directed by Penny Marshall. It is written by Steven Zaillian, who based his screenplay on Oliver Sacks's 1973 memoir ''Awakenings''. It tells the story of neurologist Dr. Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams), who is based on Sacks, who discovers the beneficial effects of the drug L-Dopa in 1969. He administers it to catatonic patients who survived the 1917–1928 epidemic of encephalitis lethargica. Leonard Lowe ( Robert de Niro) and the rest of the patients are awakened after decades and have to deal with a new life in a new time. Julie Kavner, Ruth Nelson, John Heard, Penelope Ann Miller, Peter Stormare, and Max von Sydow also star. ''Awakenings'' was produced by Walter Parkes and Lawrence Lasker, who first encountered Sacks's book as undergraduates at Yale and optioned it a few years later. The film was a critical and commercial success, earning $108.7 million on a $29 million budget, and was nominated for three Academy Awards. Plot ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Dramatists Play Service
Dramatists Play Service (also known as The Play Service) is a theatrical-publishing and licensing house, established in 1936 by members of the Dramatists Guild of America and the Society for Authors' Representatives. DPS publishes English-language acting editions of plays and handles the licensing for professional and nonprofessional English-language productions of these plays in the United States, Canada, and throughout the world. DPS is based in New York City, with foreign affiliates in London, Australia, South Africa, India, Asia, and South America that serve DPS' interests in their respective regions. The DPS catalogue consists of over 3,300 titles from over 1,300 authors. DPS authors include Eugene O'Neill, George S. Kaufman, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Horton Foote, Edward Albee, Sam Shepard, Lanford Wilson, Terrence McNally, Beth Henley, Alfred Uhry, Wendy Wasserstein, Christopher Durang, Paula Vogel, Donald Margulies, Richard Greenberg, John Patrick Shanley, Doug W ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter (; 10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008) was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include '' The Birthday Party'' (1957), ''The Homecoming'' (1964) and ''Betrayal'' (1978), each of which he adapted for the screen. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include ''The Servant'' (1963), ''The Go-Between'' (1971), ''The French Lieutenant's Woman'' (1981), ''The Trial'' (1993) and ''Sleuth'' (2007). He also directed or acted in radio, stage, television and film productions of his own and others' works. Pinter was born and raised in Hackney, east London, and educated at Hackney Downs School. He was a sprinter and a keen cricket player, acting in school plays and writing poetry. He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art but did not complete the course. He was fined for refus ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




A Kind Of Alaska
''A Kind of Alaska'' is a one-act play written in 1982 by British playwright Harold Pinter. Summary A middle-aged woman named Deborah, who has been in a comatose state for thirty years as a result of contracting "sleepy sickness," encephalitis lethargica, awakes with a mind still that of a sixteen-year-old. She must confront a body which seems to have aged without her prior knowledge or consent. Her sister Pauline and Pauline's husband, Hornby, who has been Deborah's devoted doctor over these three decades and who may have fallen in love with her, attempt gently to ease her back to her current reality, while withholding some of the more jarring information. Deborah reawakens to a changed world, attempting to take what appear to her to be rather shocking revelations in graceful stride, but ends the play with the ironic observation about her sister and brother-in-law that can only go so far towards accepting the realities that they have allowed her to know. Speaking of Pauline ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]