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Machinal
''Machinal'' is a 1928 play by American playwright and journalist Sophie Treadwell, inspired by the real-life case of convicted and executed murderer Ruth Snyder. Its Broadway premiere, directed by Arthur Hopkins, is considered one of the highpoints of Expressionist theatre on the American stage. ''Machinal'' has appeared on a variety of lists of the greatest plays. Synopsis A young woman works as a low-level stenographer and lives with her mother. She follows the rituals that society expects of a woman, however resistant she may feel about them. She subsequently marries her boss, whom she finds repulsive. After having a baby with him, she has an affair with a younger man who fuels her lust for life. Driven to murder her husband, she is convicted of the crime and is executed in the electric chair. Production Produced and directed by Arthur Hopkins, ''Machinal'' opened on Broadway at the Plymouth Theatre on September 7, 1928, and closed on November 24, 1928, after 91 per ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sophie Treadwell
Sophie Anita Treadwell (October 3, 1885 – February 20, 1970) was an American playwright and journalist of the first half of the 20th century. She is best known for her play ''Machinal'' which is often included in drama anthologies as an example of an expressionist or modernist play. Treadwell wrote dozens of plays, several novels, as well as serial stories and countless articles that appeared in newspapers. In addition to writing plays for the theatre, Treadwell also produced, directed and acted in some of her productions. The styles and subjects of Treadwell's writings are vast, but many present women's issues of her time, subjects of current media coverage, or aspects of Treadwell's Mexican heritage. Heritage and childhood Sophie Anita Treadwell was born in 1885 in Stockton, California. Between 1890 and 1891, Treadwell's father, Alfred Treadwell, deserted her and her mother, Nettie Fairchild Treadwell, and moved to San Francisco. Although Treadwell originally excelled at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Edmond Jones
Robert Edmond Jones (December 12, 1887 – November 26, 1954) was an American scenic, lighting, and costume designer. He is credited with incorporating the new stagecraft into the American drama. His designs sought to integrate scenic elements into the storytelling instead of having them stand separate and indifferent from the play's action. His visual style, often referred to as simplified realism, combined bold vivid use of color and simple, yet dramatic, lighting. Life Born in Milton, New Hampshire, Jones attended Harvard University and graduated in 1910. Jones eventually moved to New York (1912), where, with friends made at Harvard, he began to do small design jobs. In 1913 Jones and several friends sailed to Europe to study the new stagecraft with Edward Gordon Craig in Florence. The school in Florence would not accept Jones, so he went to Berlin instead, spending a year in informal study with Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater. For a 1915 production of ''The Man Who ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre
The Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, formerly the Plymouth Theatre, is a Broadway theater at 236 West 45th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1917, the theater was designed by Herbert J. Krapp and was built for the Shubert brothers. The Schoenfeld Theatre is named for Gerald Schoenfeld, longtime president of the Shubert Organization, which operates the theater. It has 1,079 seats across two levels. Both the facade and the auditorium interior are New York City landmarks. The neoclassical facade is simple in design and is similar to that of the Broadhurst Theatre, which was developed concurrently. The Schoenfeld's facade is made of buff-colored brick and terracotta and is divided into two sections: a stage house to the west and the theater's entrance to the east. The entrance facade is topped by fire-escape galleries and contains a curved corner facing east toward Broadway. The auditorium contains an orchestra level, a large balcony, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zita Johann
Zita Johann (born Elisabeth Johann; 14 July 1904 – 24 September 1993) was an Austrian-American actress. She is known for her role in Karl Freund's film '' The Mummy'' (1932) starring Boris Karloff. Life and career A German-speaking Banat Swabian, Zita Johann was born Elisabeth Johann in the village of Deutschbentschek (near Timișoara), Austria-Hungary. The village is now part of Romania. Her father, a hussar officer named Stefan Johann, emigrated with his family to the United States in 1911. She debuted on Broadway in 1924 and made her first film appearance in D.W. Griffith's 1931 film '' The Struggle''. After seven films, she quit to work in theater, collaborating with John Houseman, to whom she was married from 1929 to 1933, and with Orson Welles. She also taught acting to people with learning disorders. She made her last film appearance in the 1986 horror film '' Raiders of the Living Dead''. Johann married three times. In 1962, she was a guest artist at Elmw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Expressionism (theatre)
Expressionism was a movement in drama and theatre that principally developed in Germany in the early decades of the 20th century. It was then popularized in the United States, Spain, China, the U.K., and all around the world. Similar to the broader movement of Expressionism in the arts, Expressionist theatre utilized theatrical elements and scenery with exaggeration and distortion to deliver strong feelings and ideas to audiences. History The early Expressionist theatrical and dramatic movement in Germany had Dionysian, Hellenistic philosophy, Hellenistic, and Nietzsche philosophy influences. It was impacted by the likes of German poet August Stramm and Swedish playwright August Strindberg. ''Murderer, the Hope of Women'' by Oskar Kokoschka, written in 1907 and first performed in Vienna in 1909, was the first fully expressionist drama. Expressionism was then explored and evolved in Germany by a multitude of playwrights, the most famous of which being Georg Kaiser, whose first succ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clark Gable
William Clark Gable (February 1, 1901November 16, 1960) was an American film actor, often referred to as "The King of Hollywood". He had roles in more than 60 motion pictures in multiple genres during a career that lasted 37 years, three decades of which was as a leading man. Gable died of a heart attack at the age of 59; his final on-screen appearance was as an aging cowboy in '' The Misfits'', released posthumously in 1961. Born and raised in Ohio, Gable traveled to Hollywood where he began his film career as an extra in silent films between 1924 and 1926. He progressed to supporting roles for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and his first leading role in ''Dance, Fools, Dance'' (1931) was alongside Joan Crawford, who requested him for the part. His role in the romantic drama '' Red Dust'' (1932) with reigning sex symbol Jean Harlow, made him MGM's biggest male star. Gable won the Academy Award for Best Actor for Frank Capra's romantic comedy ''It Happened One Night'' (1934), co-starring ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gene Frankel
Eugene V. Frankel (December 23, 1919 – April 20, 2005) was an American actor, theater director, and acting teacher especially notable in the founding of the off-Broadway scene. Frankel served in the Army during World War II in entertainment and as a member of an aerial crew. Life and career Frankel's direction of the off-Broadway production of Jean Genet's '' The Blacks'' was regarded as a crucial production in promoting African-American theater during the civil-rights movement which opened in 1961 and ran at St. Mark's Theatre for more than 1,400 performances, the longest-running Off-Broadway non-musical of the decade. The cast included James Earl Jones, Roscoe Lee Browne, Louis Gossett Jr., Cicely Tyson, Godfrey Cambridge, Maya Angelou and Charles Gordone; sets were by Kim E. Swados, music by Charles Gross, and costumes and masks by Patricia Zipprodt. He began his own career as an actor and was one of the earliest members of the Actors Studio. He moved behind the scenes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean Adair
Jean Adair (born Violet McNaughton; June 13, 1873 – May 11, 1953) was a Canadian actress. She was also known as Jennet Adair. Career Born Violet McNaughton in Hamilton, Ontario, Her work as Jennet Adair in vaudeville included performing as a "singing comedienne". Adair received a scholarship for a dramatic school course, after which she acted for two years with stock theater companies. She moved from stock performances to replacing Irene Dunne in a production of ''Mother'', and her New York debut came in September 1922 when she acted in ''It's a Boy'' at the Sam H. Harris Theatre. She worked primarily on stage but also made several film appearances late in her career, most notably as Aunt Martha, one of Cary Grant's dotty old aunts in '' Arsenic and Old Lace'', a role she originated on Broadway. Her final performance was as the beloved matriarch Rebecca Nurse in the original production of ''The Crucible''. Like many stage actresses of her era, she also appeared in vaud ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vincent Gardenia
Vincent Gardenia (born Vincenzo Scognamiglio; January 7, 1920 – December 9, 1992) was an Italian-American stage, film, and television actor. He was nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, first for ''Bang the Drum Slowly'' (1973) and again for ''Moonstruck'' (1987). He also portrayed Det. Frank Ochoa in ''Death Wish'' (1974) and its 1982 sequel, ''Death Wish II'', and played "Mr. Mushnik" in the musical film adaptation of ''Little Shop of Horrors'' (1986). Gardenia's other notable feature films include '' Murder Inc.'' (1960), ''The Hustler'' (1961), '' The Front Page'' (1974), ''Greased Lightning'' (1977), '' Heaven Can Wait'' (1978), and '' The Super'' (1991). In 1990, Gardenia was awarded the Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor in a television movie or television series for the HBO production ''Age Old Friends''. Gardenia was twice honored for his performances on Broadway. In 1972, he won the Tony Award for Best Supporting Actor in ''The Prisoner ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruth Snyder
Ruth Brown Snyder (March 27, 1895 – January 12, 1928) was an American murderer. Her execution in the electric chair at New York's Sing Sing Prison in 1928 for the murder of her husband, Albert Snyder, was recorded in a highly publicized photograph. Murder of Albert Snyder Ruth Brown Snyder was a homemaker from Queens who began an affair in 1925 with Henry Judd Gray, a married corset salesman. She began to plan the murder of her husband Albert, enlisting Gray's help, but he was reluctant. Some claim that Ruth's distaste for her husband apparently began when he insisted on hanging a picture of his late fiancée, Jessie Guischard, on the wall of their first home and named his boat after her. Guischard, whom Albert described to Ruth as "the finest woman I have ever met", had been dead for 10 years. However, others have noted that Albert Snyder was emotionally and physically abusive, blaming Ruth for the birth of a daughter rather than a son, demanding a perfectly maintained home, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Hopkins
Arthur Hopkins (October 4, 1878 – March 22, 1950) was a well-known Broadway theater director and producer in the early twentieth century. Between 1912 and 1948, he produced and staged more than 80 plays – an average of more than two per year – occasionally writing and directing as well. His repertoire included plays by playwrights in American Expressionist theater, including Elmer Rice, Sophie Treadwell, and Eugene O'Neill. Biography Hopkins was born on October 4, 1878, in Cleveland. He was the youngest of ten children born to a Welsh couple, David and Mary Jane Hopkins. His autobiography is titled ''To a Lonely Boy''. After leaving high school, he began life as a reporter and then worked for a while as a theater press agent. This led to his writing a play, ''The Fatted Calf'' (1912) and to producing a show, ''Poor Little Rich Girl'', in 1913; it was a hit and launched his Broadway career. Arthur Hopkins married Australian actress Eva MacDonald in August 1915. At the tim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ITV (TV Network)
ITV is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network. It was launched in 1955 as Independent Television to provide competition to BBC Television (established in 1936). ITV is the oldest commercial network in the UK. Since the passing of the Broadcasting Act 1990, it has been legally known as Channel 3 to distinguish it from the other analogue channels at the time, BBC1, BBC2 and Channel 4. ITV was for four decades a network of separate companies which provided regional television services and also shared programmes between each other to be shown on the entire network. Each franchise was originally owned by a different company. After several mergers, the fifteen regional franchises are now held by two companies: ITV plc, which runs the ITV1 channel, and STV Group, which runs the STV channel. The ITV network is a separate entity from ITV plc, the company that resulted from the merger of Granada plc and Carlton Communications in 2004. ITV plc holds the Channel 3 bro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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