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Marshall Napier
James Marshall Napier (22 October 1951 – 14 August 2022) was a New Zealand-born character actor, playwright and graphic artist. He is known for a succession of strong supporting roles in Australasian films and television shows. He has also had a notable stage career. Biography Napier grew up in the city of Lower Hutt and was educated at Hutt Valley High School. He is the father of James Reuben Napier, actress Jessica Napier, and Rose Napier. He is the uncle of film director James Napier Robertson. Before becoming an actor, Napier worked variously as a labourer, factory hand, and truck driver. He also spent a year studying graphic design at the Wellington Polytechnic. He landed his first professional acting job in 1975, at Wellington's Downstage Theatre. In 1988, he moved with his wife and two young children to Australia, hoping to further his acting career. He soon became an established name in film, theatre, and television. His play ''Freak Winds'' has been performed in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lower Hutt
Lower Hutt ( mi, Te Awa Kairangi ki Tai) is a city in the Wellington Region of New Zealand. Administered by the Hutt City Council, it is one of the four cities that constitute the Wellington metropolitan area. It is New Zealand's sixth most populous city, with a population of . The total area administered by the council is around the lower half of the Hutt Valley and along the eastern shores of Wellington Harbour, of which is urban. It is separated from the city of Wellington by the harbour, and from Upper Hutt by the Taita Gorge. Lower Hutt is unique among New Zealand cities, as the name of the council does not match the name of the city it governs. Special legislation has since 1991 given the council the name "Hutt City Council", while the name of the place itself remains "Lower Hutt City". This name has led to confusion, as Upper Hutt is administered by a separate city council, the Upper Hutt City Council. The entire Hutt Valley includes both Lower and Upper Hutt cities. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toby Schmitz
Toby Schmitz (born 4 May 1977) is an Australian actor and playwright. He was born in Perth, Western Australia, attended Perth's Scotch College and briefly studied law at the University of Western Australia. He graduated from the acting course at National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1999 and has performed many times on stage for Sydney Theatre Company, Company B at Belvoir St Theatre and Griffin Theatre Company. He has also appeared in film and television, and writes plays. Theatre credits His Sydney Theatre Company credits include ''The School for Scandal'' directed by Judy Davis, the premiere and national tour of David Williamson's '' The Great Man'' directed by Robyn Nevin, and leading roles in George Bernard Shaw's ''Major Barbara'', Andrew Upton's '' Hanging Man'', Tony McNamara's ''The Great'', Brendan Cowell's ''Self Esteem'', Nina Raine's ''Rabbit'' and Tom Stoppard's ''Travesties''. Several of these productions toured to Melbourne and other Australian capital citie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Birthday Party (play)
''The Birthday Party'' (1957) is the first full-length play by Harold Pinter, first published in London by Encore Publishing in 1959. It is one of his best-known and most frequently performed plays. In the setting of a rundown seaside boarding house, a little birthday party is turned into a nightmare when two sinister strangers arrive unexpectedly. The play has been classified as a comedy of menace, characterised by Pinteresque elements such as ambiguous identity, confusions of time and place, and dark political symbolism. Pinter began writing ''The Birthday Party'' in the summer of 1957 while touring in ''Doctor in the House''. He later said: "I remember writing the big interrogation scene in a dressing room in Leicester." Characters * Petey, a man in his sixties * Meg, a woman in her sixties * Stanley, a man in his late thirties * Lulu, a girl in her early twenties * Goldberg, a man in his fifties * McCann, a man of thirty (''The Birthday Party'', Grove Press ed., 8) Sum ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frost/Nixon (play)
''Frost/Nixon'' is a 2006 British historical play by screenwriter and dramatist Peter Morgan based on a series of controversial televised interviews of the same name that former U.S. President Richard Nixon had granted English broadcaster David Frost in 1977 about his administration, including his role in the Watergate scandal that ultimately led to his resignation. Performance history The play premiered at the Donmar Warehouse theatre in London in August 2006, directed by Michael Grandage and starring Michael Sheen as the talk-show host and Frank Langella as the former president. ''Frost/Nixon'' received enthusiastic reviews in the British press. It then played at the Gielgud Theatre in London's West End, again starring Langella and Sheen. On March 31, 2007, the play began previews on Broadway. It officially opened as a limited engagement at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on April 22 and closed on August 19, after 137 performances. The cast included Langella, Sheen, Remy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melbourne Theatre Company
The Melbourne Theatre Company is a theatre company based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1953 as the Union Theatre Repertory Company at the Union Theatre at the University of Melbourne, it is the oldest professional theatre company in Australia. The company's Southbank Theatre houses the 500-seat Sumner and the 150-seat Lawler, and the company also performs in the Arts Centre Melbourne's Fairfax Studio and Playhouse, all located in Melbourne's Arts Precinct in Southbank. Considered Victoria's state theatre company, it formally comes under the auspices of the University of Melbourne. As of 2013 it offered a Mainstage Season of ten to twelve plays each year, as well as education, family and creative development activities, and reported having a subscriber base of approximately 20,000 people and played to a around quarter of a million people annually. History The Melbourne Theatre Company was founded in 1953 by John Sumner as the Union Theatre Repertory Company, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diving For Pearls
Diving for Pearls was an American melodic rock band founded in 1984 whose self-titled debut album was released in 1989. A follow-up album, ''Texas'', was issued in 2006 without much fanfare. The band takes its name from a line found in the 1983 Elvis Costello song, "Shipbuilding." Their song "Gimme Your Good Lovin" peaked at No. 84 on the Billboard Hot 100. History Original lineup (1984–1990) Diving For Pearls originated in Boston, Massachusetts and was formed by Danny Malone (lead vocals, guitar) and Jack Moran (keyboards), both former members of local act The Trademarks. After slugging it out on the Boston scene for a couple of years, Malone and Moran moved to New York City where they were eventually joined by Yul Vazquez (guitar, vocals), formerly with Urgent, and Peter Clemente (drums), who had played with the Michael Monroe fronted New York act, Secret Chiefs, and appeared on Monroe's 1987 debut solo album, '' Nights Are So Long.'' Vazquez and Clemente had also both b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A View From The Bridge
''A View from the Bridge'' is a play by American playwright Arthur Miller. It was first staged on September 29, 1955, as a one-act verse drama with ''A Memory of Two Mondays'' at the Coronet Theatre on Broadway. The run was unsuccessful, and Miller subsequently revised and extended the play to contain two acts; this version is the one with which audiences are most familiar. The two-act version premiered in the New Watergate theatre club in London's West End under the direction of Peter Brook on October 11, 1956. The play is set in 1950s America, in an Italian-American neighborhood near the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. It employs a chorus and narrator in the character of Alfieri. Eddie, the tragic protagonist, has an improper love of, and almost obsession with Catherine, his wife Beatrice's orphaned niece, so he does not approve of her courtship of Beatrice's cousin Rodolpho. Miller's interest in writing about the world of the New York docks originated with an unproduced s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Power Of Yes
''The Power of Yes'' is a 2009 play by English playwright David Hare. It is the story of a dramatist seeking to understand the financial crisis of 2007–2008 Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fi .... External links''The Power of Yes''(archived) at National Theatre 2009 plays Works about the Great Recession Plays by David Hare Fiction set in 2007 Plays based on actual events {{2000s-play-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof
''Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'' is a three-act play written by Tennessee Williams. An adaptation of his 1952 short story "Three Players of a Summer Game", the play was written by him between 1953 and 1955. One of Williams's more famous works and his personal favorite, the play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1955. Set in the "plantation home in the Mississippi Delta" of Big Daddy Pollitt, a wealthy cotton tycoon, the play examines the relationships among members of Big Daddy's family, primarily between his son Brick and Maggie the "Cat", Brick's wife. ''Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'' features motifs such as social mores, greed, superficiality, mendacity, decay, sexual desire, repression and death. Dialogue throughout is often written using nonstandard spelling intended to represent accents of the Southern United States. The original production starred Barbara Bel Geddes, Burl Ives and Ben Gazzara. The play was adapted as a motion picture of the same name in 1958, starring Elizabeth Ta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Belvoir Theatre
Belvoir is an Australian theatre company based at the Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney, Australia, originally known as Company B. Since 2016 and its artistic director is Eamon Flack. The theatre contains a 330-seat Upstairs Theatre and a 80-seat Downstairs Theatre. The Belvoir company receives government support for its activities from the federal government through the Major Performing Arts Board of the Australia Council for the Arts and the state government through Create NSW. Many Australian actors who have later found wider success both locally and internationally such as Deborah Mailman, Cate Blanchett, Jacqueline McKenzie, Richard Roxburgh, David Wenham, Toby Schmitz, Judy Davis and Brendan Cowell have appeared in Belvoir productions. History Theatre The theatre, converted from a former tomato sauce factory, opened in 1974 as the Nimrod Theatre for the Nimrod Theatre Company. The first production at the theatre was rock musical ''The Bacchoi''. It was renamed as "'Belvoir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simpatico (play)
''Simpatico'' is a play by American playwright Sam Shepard. It opened at the Joseph Papp Public Theater in New York on the night of 14 November 1994. In 1999, it was adapted for the screen in the film '' Simpatico'' starring Nick Nolte, Jeff Bridges, Sharon Stone, Catherine Keener, and Albert Finney. In the Fall of 2017, following the death of Sam Shepard that July, ''Simpatico'' was presented at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey by A Red Orchid Theatre of Chicago, and directed by Dado. The cast was Michael Shannon, Guy Van Swearingen, Mierka Girten, John Judd, Kristen E. Ellis and Jennifer Engstrom. Plot As youths in Azusa, California, Vinnie, Carter, and Rosie pull off a racing scam, substituting winners for plodders and winning big bucks on long odds. When an official uncovers the scam, they set him up for blackmail. The story jumps ahead for twenty years, when Carter and Rosie are married, successful racers in Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Herbal Bed
''The Herbal Bed'' (1996) is a play by Peter Whelan, written specifically for the Royal Shakespeare Company. The play is set in the year 1613 and is about Susanna Hall, daughter of William Shakespeare, who is accused of adultery with local haberdasher Rafe Smith. Her husband, John Hall (physician), Dr John Hall, is suspicious of their relationship, but stands up for his wife when she takes her accuser to court for slander. Though Susanna's father is regularly mentioned, his name is never specified and he never appears. The play ends as he is about to enter. In the original 1996 production at The Other Place (theatre), The Other Place theatre, the leading role of John Hall was played by Liam Cunningham. Susanna was played by Teresa Banham. The accuser Jack Lane was played by David Tennant and Smith by Joseph Fiennes. The production was directed by Michael Attenborough. During 1997 the play had a successful run at the Duchess Theatre in London's West End of London, West End. John ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
