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Blanka Zizka
Blanka Zizka (born 1955) is a Czechoslovakia-born American theatre director and playwright. She is currently the Founding Artistic Director of The Wilma Theater. Biography Blanka Zizka defected from Czechoslovakia in 1973 with her husband, Jiri Zizka, and came to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The couple joined up with a feminist experimental theater collective called the Wilma Project (as it was then known). By 1981, she and Jiri became co-artistic directors of the Wilma, known for their bold productions of the works of Bertolt Brecht, Eugene Ionesco and Tom Stoppard. In 1995, Blanka Zizka's Barrymore Award-winning production of Jim Cartwright's ROAD was presented at the International Theater Festival in the Czech Republic, the first American company to be invited. CBS News called the Wilma "one playhouse that has emerged from the shadow of the Great White Way to make history on its own." Blanka and Jiri set up shop in a former industrial space on Sansom Street, refurbishing it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wilma Theater (Philadelphia)
The Wilma Theater is a non-profit theater company located at 265 S. Broad Street at the corner of Spruce Street in the Avenue of the Arts area of Center City, Philadelphia. The company's current 296-seat theater opened in 1996 and was designed by Hugh Hardy. History The Wilma Theater began in 1973 as the "Wilma Project", founded to produce original material and to develop community-orient artists. The name "Wilma" refers to an imaginary oppressed sister of Shakespeare created by Virginia Woolf. Blanka Zizka and Jiri Zizka from Czechoslovakia joined the project in 1979 as artists-in-residence, and later took over artistic leadership, changing the name to the Wilma Theater. The company staged their productions at a variety of different theaters, in particular a 100-seat converted garage on Sansom Street, but opened their current 296-seat theater on S. Broad Street in 1996. Jiri Zizka left the theater at the end of the 2009–2010 season and died in January 2012. Productions b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since 1854, the city has been coextensive with Philadelphia County, the most populous county in Pennsylvania and the urban core of the Delaware Valley, the nation's seventh-largest and one of world's largest metropolitan regions, with 6.245 million residents . The city's population at the 2020 census was 1,603,797, and over 56 million people live within of Philadelphia. Philadelphia was founded in 1682 by William Penn, an English Quaker. The city served as capital of the Pennsylvania Colony during the British colonial era and went on to play a historic and vital role as the central meeting place for the nation's founding fathers whose plans and actions in Philadelphia ultimately inspired the American Revolution and the nation's inde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bertolt Brecht
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a playwright in Munich and moved to Berlin in 1924, where he wrote ''The Threepenny Opera'' with Kurt Weill and began a life-long collaboration with the composer Hanns Eisler. Immersed in Marxist thought during this period, he wrote didactic ''Lehrstücke'' and became a leading theoretician of epic theatre (which he later preferred to call "dialectical theatre") and the . During the Nazi Germany period, Brecht fled his home country, first to Scandinavia, and during World War II to the United States, where he was surveilled by the FBI. After the war he was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Returning to East Berlin after the war, he established the theatre company Berliner Ensemble with his wife and long-time collaborator ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eugene Ionesco
Eugene may refer to: People and fictional characters * Eugene (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Eugene (actress) (born 1981), Kim Yoo-jin, South Korean actress and former member of the singing group S.E.S. * Eugene (wrestler), professional wrestler Nick Dinsmore * Franklin Eugene (producer), American film producer * Gene Eugene, stage name of Canadian born actor, record producer, engineer, composer and musician Gene Andrusco (1961–2000) * Wendell Eugene (1923–2017), American jazz musician Places Canada * Mount Eugene, in Nunavut; the highest mountain of the United States Range on Ellesmere Island United States * Eugene, Oregon, a city ** Eugene, OR Metropolitan Statistical Area ** Eugene (Amtrak station) * Eugene Apartments, NRHP-listed apartment complex in Portland, Oregon * Eugene, Indiana, an unincorporated town * Eugene, Missouri, an unincorporated town Business * Eugene Green Energy Standard, an internati ... [...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] |
Paula Vogel
Paula Vogel (born November 16, 1951) is an American playwright who received the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play ''How I Learned to Drive.'' A longtime teacher, Vogel spent the bulk of her academic career – from 1984 to 2008 – at Brown University, where she served as Adele Kellenberg Seaver Professor in Creative Writing, oversaw its playwriting program, and helped found the Brown/Trinity Rep Consortium. From 2008 to 2012, Vogel was Eugene O'Neill Professor of Playwriting and department chair at the Yale School of Drama, as well as playwright in residence at the Yale Repertory Theatre. Biography Early years Vogel was born in Washington, D.C., to Donald Stephen Vogel, an advertising executive, and Phyllis Rita (Bremerman), a secretary for the United States Postal Service Training and Development Center. Her father was Jewish, whereas her mother was Roman Catholic. She attended Bryn Mawr College from 1969 to 1970 and 1971 to 1972, and is a graduate of The Catholic U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Bean
Richard Anthony Bean (born 11 June 1956) is an English playwright. Early years Born in East Hull, Bean was educated at Hull Grammar School, and then studied social psychology at Loughborough University, graduating with a 2:1 BSc Hons. He then worked as an occupational psychologist, having previously worked in a bread plant for a year and a half after leaving school. Between 1989 and 1994, Bean also worked as a comedian and went on to be one of the writers and performers of the sketch show ''Control Group Six'' (BBC Radio) which was nominated for a Writers Guild Award. Theatre career In 1995 he wrote the libretto for Stephen McNeff's opera ''Paradise of Fools'', which premiered at the Unicorn Theatre. His first full-length play, ''Of Rats and Men'', set in a psychology lab, was staged at the Canal Cafe Theatre in 1996 and went on to the Edinburgh Festival. He adapted it for BBC Radio, starring Anton Lesser, and it was nominated for a Sony Award. Plays *''Of Rats and Men'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tony Kushner
Anthony Robert Kushner (born July 16, 1956) is an American author, playwright, and screenwriter. Lauded for his work on stage he's most known for his seminal work ''Angels in America'' which earned a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award. At the turn of the 21st Century he became known for his numerous film collaborations with Steven Spielberg. He received the National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in 2013. Kushner made his Broadway debut in 1993 with both '' Angels in America: Millennium Approaches'' and '' Angels in America: Perestroika''. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play. He then adapted it into a 2003 miniseries directed by Mike Nichols for which Kushner received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series or Movie. In 2003 he wrote the lyrics and book to the musical ''Caroline, or Change'' which earned Kushner Tony Award nominations for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score. He has collabor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Angels In America
''Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes'' is a two-part play by American playwright Tony Kushner. The work won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Tony Award for Best Play, and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play. Part one of the play premiered in 1991, followed by part two in 1992. Its Broadway opening was in 1993. The play is a complex, often metaphorical, and at times symbolic examination of AIDS and homosexuality in America in the 1980s. Certain major and minor characters are supernatural beings (angels) or deceased persons (ghosts). The play contains multiple roles for several actors. Initially and primarily focusing on one gay and one straight couple in Manhattan, the plot has several additional storylines, some of which intersect occasionally. The two parts of the play, ''Millennium Approaches'' and ''Perestroika'', may be presented separately. In 1994, playwright and professor of theater studies John M. Clum called the pla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sarah Ruhl
Sarah Ruhl (born January 24, 1974) is an American playwright, professor, and essayist. Among her most popular plays are ''Eurydice'' (2003), '' The Clean House'' (2004), and ''In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play)'' (2009). She has been the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for a distinguished American playwright in mid-career. Two of her plays have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and she received a nomination for Tony Award for Best Play. In 2020, she adapted her play ''Eurydice'' into the libretto for Matthew Aucoin's opera of the same name. In 2015, she published a collection of essays, ''100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write''. Her most recent play, ''Becky Nurse of Salem'' (2019) premiered at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. She currently serves on the faculty of the Yale School of Drama. In 2018, ''Letters from Max: A Book of Friendship'', co-authored by Max Ritvo, was published by Milkweed Edi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Macbeth
''Macbeth'' (, full title ''The Tragedie of Macbeth'') is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. It is thought to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power. Of all the plays that Shakespeare wrote during the reign of James I, ''Macbeth'' most clearly reflects his relationship with King James, patron of Shakespeare's acting company. It was first published in the Folio of 1623, possibly from a prompt book, and is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy. A brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia. Forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler. The bloodbath and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1955 Births
Events January * January 3 – José Ramón Guizado becomes president of Panama. * January 17 – , the first nuclear-powered submarine, puts to sea for the first time, from Groton, Connecticut. * January 18– 20 – Battle of Yijiangshan Islands: The Chinese Communist People's Liberation Army seizes the islands from the Republic of China (Taiwan). * January 22 – In the United States, The Pentagon announces a plan to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), armed with nuclear weapons. * January 23 – The Sutton Coldfield rail crash kills 17, near Birmingham, England. * January 25 – The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union announces the end of the war between the USSR and Germany, which began during World War II in 1941. * January 28 – The United States Congress authorizes President Dwight D. Eisenhower to use force to protect Formosa from the People's Republic of China. February * February 10 – The United States Sev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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