English Made Simple
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English Made Simple
''English Made Simple'' is a 1994 short play by David Ives. Plot ''English Made Simple'' is the story of a couple named Jack and Jill who meet at a party. As the night progresses, it becomes apparent that the two knew each other, and were even involved romantically, before this night at the party. Meanwhile, a college English professor, whose name is never announced but written as the "Loudspeaker Voice" in the script, explains what the couple is ''really'' thinking as they talk to each other. It is an extremely wordy romantic comedy full of twists and turns. It is one of David Ives's better known plays. Productions ''English Made Simple'' premiered at the Seattle Repertory Theatre in April 1994, directed by Bill Irwin with Liz McCarthy as Jill and R. Hamilton Wright as Jack, and John Aylward as the Loudspeaker Voice. The play was produced by Primary Stages in May 1996, as part of a double bill with Ives' play ''Ancient History'', directed by John Rando. Ben Brantley, in his rev ...
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David Ives
David Ives (born July 11, 1950) is an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. He is perhaps best known for his comic one-act plays; ''The New York Times'' in 1997 referred to him as the "maestro of the short form". Ives has also written dramatic plays, narrative stories, and screenplays, has adapted French 17th and 18th-century classical comedies, and adapted 33 musicals for New York City's ''Encores!'' series. Early life and education Ives wrote his first play when he was nine. He attended a boys Catholic seminary. "We would-be priests were groomed for gravitas," he has said. At the end of the year the seniors could be a part of a school show called "The Senior Mock," in which the students satirized the teachers. Ives played the role of "the chain-smoking English teacher who coached the track team (while smoking)", and he wrote and performed a song. This school experience, along with seeing a production of Edward Albee’s '' A Delicate Balance'', starring Hume Cronyn ...
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Primary Stages
Primary Stages was founded in 1984 by Casey Childs as an Off-Broadway not-for-profit theater company. In 2004, Primary Stages moved from its 99-seat home of 17 years at 354 West 45th Street to the 199-seat theater at 59E59 Theaters. In 2014, the company moved to The Duke on 42nd Street until 2016, when the Cherry Lane Theatre became the home for all Primary Stages productions. History For over 30 years, Primary Stages has put on more than 130 new plays by writers such as Horton Foote, A.R. Gurney, Tanya Saracho, Romulus Linney, Dan O'Brien, Donald Margulies, Kate Hamill, Christopher Durang, Terrence McNally, Danai Gurira, Nikkole Salter, John Patrick Shanley, Mac Wellman, Sharon Washington, Lee Blessing, and David Ives. Primary Stages 9th season included the world premiere of ''All in the Timing'' by David Ives, the most produced play in the United States during the 1995/96 season. Primary Stages supports playwrights and develops new works through commissions, workshops, read ...
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Ancient History (play)
''Ancient History'' is a one-act play written by American playwright David Ives. Production ''Ancient History'' premiered Off-Broadway in May 1989 in a production by Primary Stages, with direction by Jason McConnell Buzas and the cast of Beth McDonald and Christopher Wells.Ives, DavidScript''Ancient History'', Dramatists Play Service, Inc., 1996, , pp2-3 A revised edition was presented Off-Broadway by Primary Stages in June 1996, with direction by John Rando and a cast of Vivienne Benesch and Michael Rupert.Brantley, Ben"THEATER REVIEW;A Simply Charming Couple Headed for a Dead End"''The New York Times'', May 22, 1996 ''New York Magazine'' describes ''Ancient History'' as “a genuine achievement sIves spins a dance that is Strindberg with yuks … the dialogue is crunchy and saucy sthese lovers are buffeted about circularly, hilariously, and scarily.”Ives, DavidScript''Ancient History'', Dramatists Play Service, Inc., 1996, , pp2-3 Plot The play opens with the ominous ringin ...
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John Rando
John Rando is an American stage director who won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for '' Urinetown the Musical'' in 2002. He received his 2nd nomination in the same category in 2015 for the 2014 Broadway revival of '' On the Town''. Early life Rando grew up in Houston, Texas and attended the University of Texas in Austin, studying theatre. He received a Fulbright Program fellowship and studied theatre in Germany and Italy and then studied directing at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, graduating in 1988. He next worked as an assistant director at the Old Globe Theatre (San Diego). Career Rando has directed Off-Broadway, on Broadway and in regional theatre. His first Off-Broadway play was ''Fortune's Fools'', by Frederick Stroppel, at the Cherry Lane Theatre in 1995. He directed the musical ''The Toxic Avenger'', which opened Off-Broadway in 2009, after it premiered at the George Street Playhouse (New Brunswick, New Jersey). Rando has directed several ...
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Ben Brantley
Benjamin D. Brantley (born October 26, 1954) is an American theater critic, journalist, editor, publisher and writer. He served as the chief theater critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1996 to 2017, and as co-chief theater critic from 2017 to 2020. Life and career Born in Durham, North Carolina, Brantley received a Bachelor of Arts in English from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, graduating in 1977, and is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Brantley began his journalism career as a summer intern at the ''Winston-Salem Sentinel'' and, in 1975, became an editorial assistant at ''The Village Voice''. At ''Women's Wear Daily'', he was a reporter and then editor (1978-January 1983), and later became the European editor, publisher, and Paris bureau chief until June 1985. For the next 18 months, Brantley freelanced, writing regularly for ''Elle'', '' Vanity Fair'', and ''The New Yorker'' before joining ''The New York Times'' as a Drama Critic (August 1993). He was elevat ...
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The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid digital subscribers. It also is a producer of popular podcasts such as '' The Daily''. Founded in 1851 by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones, it was initially published by Raymond, Jones & Company. The ''Times'' has won 132 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any newspaper, and has long been regarded as a national " newspaper of record". For print it is ranked 18th in the world by circulation and 3rd in the U.S. The paper is owned by the New York Times Company, which is publicly traded. It has been governed by the Sulzberger family since 1896, through a dual-class share structure after its shares became publicly traded. A. G. Sulzberger, the paper's publisher and the company's chairman, is the fifth generation of the family to head the pa ...
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Plays By David Ives
Play most commonly refers to: * Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment * Play (theatre), a work of drama Play may refer also to: Computers and technology * Google Play, a digital content service * Play Framework, a Java framework * Play Mobile, a Polish internet provider * Xperia Play, an Android phone * Rakuten.co.uk (formerly Play.com), an online retailer * Backlash (engineering), or ''play'', non-reversible part of movement * Petroleum play, oil fields with same geological circumstances * Play symbol, in media control devices Film * ''Play'' (2005 film), Chilean film directed by Alicia Scherson * ''Play'', a 2009 short film directed by David Kaplan * ''Play'' (2011 film), a Swedish film directed by Ruben Östlund * ''Rush'' (2012 film), an Indian film earlier titled ''Play'' and also known as ''Raftaar 24 x 7'' * ''The Play'' (film), a 2013 Bengali film Literature and publications * ''Play'' (play), written by Samuel Beckett * ''Play'' (''The New York Time ...
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English Language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots, and then closest related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is genealogically West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of France (about 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in the 8th and 9th ...
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1994 Plays
File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson Mandela casts his vote in the 1994 South African general election, in which he was elected South Africa's first president, and which effectively brought Apartheid to an end; NAFTA, which was signed in 1992, comes into effect in Canada, the United States, and Mexico; The first passenger rail service to utilize the newly-opened Channel tunnel; The 1994 FIFA World Cup is held in the United States; Skulls from the Rwandan genocide, in which over half a million Tutsi people were massacred by Hutus., 300x300px, thumb rect 0 0 200 200 1994 Winter Olympics rect 200 0 400 200 Northridge earthquake rect 400 0 600 200 Sinking of the MS Estonia rect 0 200 300 400 Rwandan genocide rect 300 200 600 400 Nelson Mandela rect 0 400 200 600 1994 FIFA World Cup ...
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