The Maids
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The Maids
''The Maids'' (french: Les Bonnes, links=no) is a 1947 play by the French dramatist Jean Genet. It was first performed at the Théâtre de l'Athénée in Paris in a production that opened on 17 April 1947, which Louis Jouvet directed. The play has been revived in France, England, and the United States on multiple occasions, sometimes with men playing the roles of the maids. A TV dramatization Stuepigerne was done by Danish national broadcaster Danmarks Radio in 1962. A film adaptation of the play was released in 1974. Swedish composer adapted the play in 1994 for a chamber opera. Background Genet loosely based his play on the infamous sisters Christine and Léa Papin, who brutally murdered their employer and her daughter in Le Mans, France, in 1933. In an introduction written for ''The Maids'', Jean-Paul Sartre quotes a line from Genet's novel ''Our Lady of the Flowers'' in which a character muses that if he had a play written for women he'd cast adolescent boys in the pa ...
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Jean Genet
Jean Genet (; – ) was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. In his early life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but he later became a writer and playwright. His major works include the novels ''The Thief's Journal'' and ''Our Lady of the Flowers'' and the plays ''The Balcony'', ''The Maids'' and ''The Screens''. Biography Early life Genet's mother was a prostitute who raised him for the first seven months of his life before placing him for adoption. Thereafter Genet was raised in the provincial town of Alligny-en-Morvan, in the Nièvre department of central France. His foster family was headed by a carpenter and, according to Edmund White's biography, was loving and attentive. While he received excellent grades in school, his childhood involved a series of attempts at running away and incidents of petty theft. After the death of his foster mother, Genet was placed with an elderly couple but remained with them less than two years. Accord ...
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Mercury Theatre, Notting Hill Gate
The Mercury Theatre was a small theatre on Ladbroke Road, Notting Hill Gate, London, notable for the productions of poetic dramas between 1933 and 1956, and as the home of the Ballet Rambert until 1987. History (founding) The Mercury Theatre was opened in 1933 by Ashley Dukes for the production of new drama and to serve as a centre for the Ballet Rambert, run by his wife Marie Rambert. The building, at 2, Ladbroke Road, London W11, had been built in 1851 as a Sunday school for the adjacent Congregational Chapel, but was extensively altered to serve as a theatre. It was a well-equipped but small venue, seating about 150. Productions The style was set by the first production, ''Jupiter Translated'', an adaptation of Molière's ''Amphitryon'' by Walter James Turner with a ballet by Rupert Doone as entr'acte. Vladimir Rosing's ''British Opera Group'' was in residence for several weeks in June 1935. The theatre's reputation was further established in 1935 by the first London p ...
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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 ...
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Oxford Playhouse
Oxford Playhouse is a theatre designed by Edward Maufe and F.G.M. Chancellor. It is situated in Beaumont Street, Oxford, opposite the Ashmolean Museum. History The Playhouse was founded as ''The Red Barn'' at 12 Woodstock Road, North Oxford, in 1923 by J.B. Fagan. The early history of the theatre is documented by the theatre director, Norman Marshall in his 1947 book, ''The Other Theatre''. Don Chapman also provided a comprehensive study of the theatre in the 2008 book, ''Oxford Playhouse: High and Low Drama in a University City''. The exterior design of the theatre building on the south side of Beaumont Street was by Sir Edward Maufe, with the interior design by F.G.M. Chancellor; the building was completed in 1938. It is faced with stone, in keeping with the early 19th century Regency buildings in the street. Actors who have appeared on the stage at the Playhouse include Rowan Atkinson, Ronnie Barker, Dirk Bogarde, Judi Dench, John Gielgud, Ian McDiarmid, Ian McKelle ...
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Minos Volanakis
Minos Volonakis ( el, Μίνως Βολανάκης; 1925 or 1926, Athens – 15 November 1999, Athens) was a Greek theatre director and translator.See his obituary in ''The New York Times'', November 20, 1999. He studied with Karolos Koun, for whom he translated American plays into Greek, and first made his name for his translations of the dramas of his friend Jean Genet, as well as for productions of Samuel Beckett's '' Waiting for Godot'' and Aristophanes' ''Lysistrata'' at the Athens Festival. In protest against the government, he left Greece in 1966 for England, where he became an associate director at the Oxford Playhouse. His productions there included Genet's ''The Maids'' (1963-4) and ''The Balcony'' (1967), and Jean Giraudoux's ''Madwoman of Chaillot''. He provided the translation into English of Euripides' ''Iphigeneia at Aulis'' for a production at the Circle in the Square Theatre in New York in 1967, which Michael Cacoyannis directed. He directed a production of Euripid ...
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The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the creative community of New York City. It ceased publication in 2017, although its online archives remained accessible. After an ownership change, the ''Voice'' reappeared in print as a quarterly in April 2021. Over its 63 years of publication, ''The Village Voice'' received three Pulitzer Prizes, the National Press Foundation Award, and the George Polk Award. ''The Village Voice'' hosted a variety of writers and artists, including writer Ezra Pound, cartoonist Lynda Barry, artist Greg Tate, and film critics Andrew Sarris, Jonas Mekas and J. Hoberman. In October 2015, ''The Village Voice'' changed ownership and severed all ties with former parent company Voice Media Group (VMG). The ''Voice'' announced on August 22, 2017, that it would cease p ...
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Obie Award For Distinguished Performance By An Actress
The Obie Award for Distinguished Performance by an Actress was first presented in 1956. The award has no nominees and there is no set number of winners per year. Each performance listed by year below was given an award and they are listed in no particular order. The award can be for a lead or supporting performance and in a play or musical. On occasion, the Obie Awards committee will give an actress an award ''for sustained excellence of performance'' to recognize their contributions to Off-Broadway theatre. There is also a separate ensemble award given to recognize entire casts without singling out a particular performer, as they have below. On occasion, the committee gives an actress an award for ''sustained lifetime achievement'', listings for which are also included below. The Obie Award is for performances Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway in New York City only, and is one of the most respected theatre awards given in the United States. In 2014, Sydney Lucas became the younges ...
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Hazel Penwarden
The hazel (''Corylus'') is a genus of deciduous trees and large shrubs native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The genus is usually placed in the birch family Betulaceae,Germplasmgobills Information Network''Corylus''Rushforth, K. (1999). ''Trees of Britain and Europe''. Collins .Huxley, A., ed. (1992). ''New RHS Dictionary of Gardening''. Macmillan . though some botanists split the hazels (with the hornbeams and allied genera) into a separate family Corylaceae. The fruit of the hazel is the hazelnut. Hazels have simple, rounded leaves with double-serrate margins. The flowers are produced very early in spring before the leaves, and are monoecious, with single-sex catkins. The male catkins are pale yellow and long, and the female ones are very small and largely concealed in the buds, with only the bright-red, 1-to-3 mm-long styles visible. The fruits are nuts long and 1–2 cm diameter, surrounded by an involucre (husk) which partly to fully encloses the nut. ...
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Betty Stockfeld
Betty Stockfeld (15 January 190527 January 1966), often misspelled "Stockfield", was an Australian film actress. She appeared mostly in British and French films. Betty was the daughter of Sydney businessman Harry Hooper Stockfeld and Susan Elizabeth Stockfeld, née Evans, and a niece of commander F. Pryce Evans of Shackleton's ''Nimrod'' expedition. They were in London at the outbreak of war in 1914, so unable to return to Australia. The following is the copied entry from the Hungarian National Picture Gallery, which refers to the picture of Stockfeld, by Philip de László, in their collection:- "2932 Betty Stockfeld as Mary Magdalen 1930 Standing half-length to the right, face turned upwards, wearing a large white wrap over a flowing purple dress, her long red hair loose, her hands raised to her face in a gesture of grief, all against a grey-blue background. Oil on canvas, 93 x 72 cm (36 ½ x 28 ¼ in.) Inscribed lower left:- Philip de László / 1930 Laib L16226(433) ...
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Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a non-commercial West End theatre in Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England. In 1956 it was acquired by and remains the home of the English Stage Company, which is known for its contributions to contemporary theatre and won the Europe Prize Theatrical Realities in 1999. History The first theatre The first theatre on Lower George Street, off Sloane Square, was the converted Nonconformist Ranelagh Chapel, opened as a theatre in 1870 under the name The New Chelsea Theatre. Marie Litton became its manager in 1871, hiring Walter Emden to remodel the interior, and it was renamed the Court Theatre. Several of W. S. Gilbert's early plays were staged here, including ''Randall's Thumb'', ''Creatures of Impulse'' (with music by Alberto Randegger), ''Great Expectations'' (adapted from the Dickens novel), and ''On Gu ...
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Oriel Ross
Oriel Ross (10 June 190720 October 1994), born Muriel Mary Swinstead was an English actress. In 1933 Cecil Beaton included her in ''The Book of Beauty'' saying that she was Jacob Epstein's favorite model. Biography Muriel Mary Swinstead was born on 10 June 1907 in Chalgrove, Oxfordshire, the daughter of John Howard Swinstead, a clergyman. She attended the Royal College of Music and in 1923, at 16 years old, made her debut on stage in Karel Čapek's ''The Insect Play''. Middle of the 1920s, Ross lived in Jacob Epstein's bohemian house in Guildford Street, London, together with his wife, mistress, children, models and followers. There are three portraits of Ross by Epstein, a bust in 1925, exhibited at the Leicester Galleries in 1926, and Epstein's 1927 New York exhibition; a head in 1926, now in a private collection, also in the 1927 New York exhibition (another cast from the head is in the collection of the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester); a torso in 1931/2 is now at the Mus ...
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Olive Gregg
The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'', meaning 'European olive' in Latin, is a species of small tree or shrub in the family (biology), family Oleaceae, found traditionally in the Mediterranean Basin. When in shrub form, it is known as ''Olea europaea'' 'Montra', dwarf olive, or little olive. The species is cultivated in all the countries of the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean, as well as in Australia, New Zealand, North and South America and South Africa. ''Olea europaea'' is the type species for the genus ''Olea''. The olive's fruit, also called an "olive", is of major agricultural importance in the Mediterranean region as the source of olive oil; it is one of the core ingredients in Mediterranean cuisine. The tree and its fruit give their name to the plant family, which also includes species such as Syringa vulgaris, lilac, jasmine, forsythia, and the true Fraxinus, ash tree. Thousands of cultivars of the olive tree are known. Olive cultivars may be used primarily for ...
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