|
Group Theatre (London)
The Group Theatre (London) was an experimental theatre company founded in 1932 by Rupert Doone and Robert Medley. It evolved from a play-reading group in Cambridge that Doone had been involved with during his years studying with the Cambridge Festival Theatre. The Group Theatre was active from 1932 to 1939 and reformed as The Group Theatre Ltd. in the early 1950s. The Group performed plays written for it in the 1930s by W. H. Auden, both alone and in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood, Louis MacNeice, and Stephen Spender. It also produced plays by T. S. Eliot and other contemporary writers, and Elizabethan and medieval English plays. Among the artists and musicians who worked with the Group were Henry Moore, Benjamin Britten, Brian Easdale and Rupert Shephard Rupert Norman Shephard (12 February 1909 – 16 March 1992) was an English painter, illustrator and art teacher. Early life Shephard was born in Islington, the son of an engineer and a charity worker, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rupert Doone
Rupert Doone (born Reginald Woodfield, 14 August 1903 – 4 March 1966) was a British dancer, choreographer, theatre director, and teacher in London. Biography Doone was born in Redditch, Worcestershire, from a Worcestershire family in reduced circumstances, but with a background that reportedly included a link with Shakespeare. His father was a needle factory foreman. He left home at sixteen to begin his career as a dancer with no money. He led a precarious existence, scraping by on what he earned modeling at the Royal Academy and the Slade in order to pay for the lessons. At 19, he left London for Paris, where he became a protégé and lover of Jean Cocteau. In 1925 he was the last ''premier danseur'' engaged by Diaghilev for the Ballets Russes - but remained with the company only until Diaghilev's death a few weeks later. He then made his way to the Festival Theatre, Cambridge, to learn acting and production, and there he became part of a play-reading group. In 1926 he me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Medley
Charles Robert Owen Medley CBE, RA, (19 December 1905 – 20 October 1994), also known as Robert Medley, was an English artist who painted in both abstract and figurative styles, and who also worked as theatre designer. He held several teaching positions in both London and Rome. Biography Early life Medley was born in London, one of six children to Charles Medley, a highly successful copyright lawyer who was friends with many writers of the day. He was educated at Gresham's School in Holt, Norfolk from 1919 to 1923, before briefly attending the Byam Shaw School of Art. During 1924 Medley studied art at the Royal Academy Schools but soon switched to the Slade School of Fine Art and then completed his art training by spending two years, from 1926 to 1928, in Paris. At Gresham's School Medley was the friend of W. H. Auden, and first suggested that Auden might write poetry, although Medley did not know at the time that he had this effect. As described in his memoir, ''Drawn fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cambridge Festival Theatre
The Theatre Royal was built in the Barnwell suburb of Cambridge, England, in 1816. It closed later that century but reopened as the Cambridge Festival Theatre from 1926 until 1935. The building, in which part of the interior of the theatre survives, is Grade II* listed. 19th century In the mid-18th century, Cambridge's main source of theatrical performances came from travelling companies, including the Norwich Company of Comedians, that would perform on Stourbridge Common at the Stourbridge Fair for three weeks each autumn. As a result, three theatres were built in Barnwell in succession, but Cambridge lacked a permanent theatre. William Wilkins (1751–1815), a building contractor, was proprietor of a chain of theatres in East Anglia known as the Norwich Theatre Circuit. Wilkins and his son, also William (1778–1839), built a theatre in 1807 at Sun Street, Barnwell. The younger Wilkins, responsible for Downing College and London's National Gallery during his career, des ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christopher Isherwood
Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include '' Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical novel which inspired the musical ''Cabaret''; ''A Single Man'' (1964), adapted as a film by Tom Ford in 2009; and '' Christopher and His Kind'' (1976), a memoir which "carried him into the heart of the Gay Liberation movement". Biography Early life and work Isherwood was born in 1904 on his family's estate in Cheshire near Stockport in the north-west of England. He was the elder son of Francis Edward Bradshaw Isherwood (1869–1915), known as Frank, a professional soldier in the York and Lancaster Regiment, and Kathleen Bradshaw Isherwood, nee Machell Smith (1868–1960), the only daughter of a successful wine merchant. He was the grandson of John Henry Isherwood, squire of Marple Hall and Wyberslegh Hall, Cheshire, and he included ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis MacNeice
Frederick Louis MacNeice (12 September 1907 – 3 September 1963) was an Irish poet and playwright, and a member of the Auden Group, which also included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis. MacNeice's body of work was widely appreciated by the public during his lifetime, due in part to his relaxed but socially and emotionally aware style. Never as overtly or simplistically political as some of his contemporaries, he expressed a humane opposition to totalitarianism as well as an acute awareness of his roots. Life Ireland, 1907–1917 Louis MacNeice (known as Freddie until his teens, when he adopted his middle name) was born in Belfast, the youngest son of Rev. John Frederick and Elizabeth Margaret ("Lily") MacNeice.Poetry Foundation profile Both were originally from the West of Ireland. MacNeice's fa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Spender
Sir Stephen Harold Spender (28 February 1909 – 16 July 1995) was an English poet, novelist and essayist whose work concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by the United States Library of Congress in 1965. Early life Spender was born in Kensington, London, to journalist Harold Spender and Violet Hilda Schuster, a painter and poet, of German Jewish heritage. He went first to Hall School in Hampstead and then at 13 to Gresham's School, Holt and later Charlecote School in Worthing, but he was unhappy there. On the death of his mother, he was transferred to University College School (Hampstead), which he later described as "that gentlest of schools". Spender left for Nantes and Lausanne and then went up to University College, Oxford (much later, in 1973, he was made an honorary fellow). Spender said at various times throughout his life that he never passed any exam. Perhaps his closest friend and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Moore
Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi- abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. As well as sculpture, Moore produced many drawings, including a series depicting Londoners sheltering from the Blitz during the Second World War, along with other graphic works on paper. His forms are usually abstractions of the human figure, typically depicting mother-and-child or reclining figures. Moore's works are usually suggestive of the female body, apart from a phase in the 1950s when he sculpted family groups. His forms are generally pierced or contain hollow spaces. Many interpreters liken the undulating form of his reclining figures to the landscape and hills of his Yorkshire birthplace. Moore became well known through his carved marble and larger-scale abstract cast bronze sculptures, and was instrumental in introducing a particular form of modernism to the Unite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera '' Peter Grimes'' (1945), the '' War Requiem'' (1962) and the orchestral showpiece ''The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra'' (1945). Born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, the son of a dentist, Britten showed talent from an early age. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London and privately with the composer Frank Bridge. Britten first came to public attention with the '' a cappella'' choral work '' A Boy was Born'' in 1934. With the premiere of ''Peter Grimes'' in 1945, he leapt to international fame. Over the next 28 years, he wrote 14 more operas, establishing himself as one of the leading 20th-century composers in the genre. In addition to large-sca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brian Easdale
Brian Easdale (10 August 1909 – 30 October 1995) was a British composer of operatic, orchestral, choral and film music, best known for his ballet film score ''The Red Shoes'' of 1948. Life Easdale was born in Manchester, and was educated at Westminster Abbey School and the Royal College of Music. At the latter institution he was a pupil of Armstrong Gibbs (composition) and Gordon Jacob (orchestration). His London introduction as a composer came through a concert of his own music he organised (shared with Herbert Murrill) at the Wigmore Hall on 1 July 1931, which attracted press notices. The concert included the Piano Sonata (1929), String Trio (1931) and five pieces accompanying recited texts by his sister, the poet Joan Adeney Easdale. By the 1930s Easdale was living in London, in a Hampstead bed-sit. His downstairs neighbour, the poet Louis MacNeice, suggested to him that he should work for John Grierson's GPO Film Unit, where MacNeice's fellow poet W. H. Auden was alre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rupert Shephard
Rupert Norman Shephard (12 February 1909 – 16 March 1992) was an English painter, illustrator and art teacher. Early life Shephard was born in Islington, the son of an engineer and a charity worker, who were both Quakers and keen amateur artists. He attended Repton School, before studying at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1926 to 1929. After graduating from the Slade, Shephard taught at Raynes Park County School whilst painting at night and often in pubs and music halls. In 1929, he began to exhibit with the London Group at both the Wertheim Gallery and the Coolings Gallery. Throughout 1937 to 1939 Shephard exhibited with the founding members of the Euston Road School, William Coldstream, Claude Rogers and Victor Pasmore at the Storran Gallery whilst continuing to exhibit with the London Group. Shephard held his first solo exhibition at the Calman Gallery in 1939. World War II From 1940 to 1943, Shephard worked as an industrial draughtsman but continued to paint a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1939 Disestablishments In England
This year also marks the start of the Second World War, the List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, largest and deadliest conflict in human history. Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 ** Nazi Germany, Third Reich *** Jews are forbidden to work with Germans. *** The Protection Young Persons Act (Germany), Youth Protection Act was passed on April 30, 1938 and the Working Hours Regulations came into effect. *** The Jews name change decree has gone into effect. ** The rest of the world *** In Spain, it becomes a duty of all young women under 25 to complete compulsory work service for one year. *** First edition of the Vienna New Year's Concert. *** The company of technology and manufacturing scientific instruments Hewlett-Packard, was founded in a garage in Palo Alto, California, by Bill Hewlett, William (Bill) Hewlett and David Packard. This garage is now considered the birthplace of Silicon Valley. *** Sydne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1932 Establishments In England
Year 193 ( CXCIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Sosius and Ericius (or, less frequently, year 946 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 193 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * January 1 – Year of the Five Emperors: The Roman Senate chooses Publius Helvius Pertinax, against his will, to succeed the late Commodus as Emperor. Pertinax is forced to reorganize the handling of finances, which were wrecked under Commodus, to reestablish discipline in the Roman army, and to suspend the food programs established by Trajan, provoking the ire of the Praetorian Guard. * March 28 – Pertinax is assassinated by members of the Praetorian Guard, who storm the imperial palace. The Empire is auctioned off ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> 1939 Disestablishments In England")
