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Whitford Kane
Whitford Kane (born Thomas Wheeler Kane, January 30, 1881 – December 17, 1956) was a noted Irish-born American stage and screen character actor remembered for playing the First Gravedigger in numerous productions of Shakespeare's ''Hamlet'' and by the students that attended his drama classes over a career that spanned nearly six decades. By the end of his long career, Whitford Kane's theatre credits had grown to fill three columns in John Parker's ''Who's Who in the Theatre''.Actor for Five Decades, Marks 75th Birthday and 56th Production; ''New York Times''; January 30, 1956; pg. 24; Whitford Kane, Actor, 75, Dead ''New York Times''; December 18, 1956; pg. 31 Biography Kane was born on January 30, 1881 in Larne, a seaport on the east coast of County Antrim, Ireland, to Dr. John Kane and the former Isabella Whiteford. He first took to the stage in Belfast while in his early 20s, and by 1910 was performing on the London stage. Kane's first known Broadway performance, the idle in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Larne
Larne (, , the name of a Gaelic Ireland, Gaelic territory) is a town on the east coast of County Antrim, Northern Ireland, with a population of 18,755 at the United Kingdom census, 2011, 2011 Census. It is a major passenger and freight Roll-on/roll-off, roll-on roll-off port. Larne is administered by Mid and East Antrim Borough Council. Together with parts of the neighbouring districts of Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council, Antrim and Newtownabbey and Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council, Causeway Coast and Glens, it forms the East Antrim (UK Parliament constituency), East Antrim constituency for elections to the Westminster Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly. The civil parish is in the historic Barony (geographic), barony of Glenarm Upper. History The coastal area around Larne has been inhabited for millennia, and is thought to have been one of the earliest inhabited areas of Ireland, with these early human populations believed to have arrived from Scotland via th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Santa Claus
Santa Claus, also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Kris Kringle, or simply Santa, is a Legend, legendary figure originating in Western Christianity, Western Christian culture who is said to Christmas gift-bringer, bring children gifts during the late evening and overnight hours on Christmas Eve of toys and candy or coal or nothing, depending on whether they are "naughty or nice". In the legend, he accomplishes this with the aid of Christmas elf, Christmas elves, who make the toys in Santa's workshop, his workshop, often said to be at the North Pole, and Santa Claus's reindeer, flying reindeer who pull his sleigh through the air. The modern figure of Santa is based on folklore traditions surrounding Saint Nicholas (European folklore), Saint Nicholas, the English figure of Father Christmas and the Folklore of the Low Countries, Dutch figure of ''Sinterklaas''. Santa is generally depicted as a portly, jolly, white-bearded man, often with spectacles, wearing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Will Geer
Will Geer (born William Aughe Ghere; March 9, 1902 – April 22, 1978) was an American actor, musician, and social activist, who was active in labor organizing and other movements in New York and Southern California in the 1930s and 1940s. In California he befriended rising singer Woody Guthrie. They both lived in New York for a time in the 1940s. He was blacklisted in the 1950s by Hollywood after refusing, in testimony before Congress, to name persons who had joined the Communist Party. In his later years, he was well known for his role as the grandfather figure Zebulon Walton in the TV series ''The Waltons'' until his death. Early life Geer was born in Frankfort, Indiana, the son of Katherine (née Aughe), a teacher, and Roy Aaron Ghere, a postal worker. His father left the family when he was 11 years old. He was deeply influenced by his grandfather, who taught him the botanical names of the plants in his native state. Geer started out to become a botanist, studying the subje ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hiram Sherman
Hiram Sherman (February 11, 1908 – April 11, 1989) was an American actor. Biography Hiram Sherman was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His father, Clifford Leon Sherman, worked in the art department of ''The Boston Globe''. He made his Broadway debut as a playwright with the short-lived comedy ''Too Much Party'' in 1934. The farce, directed by William Friedlander, opened at the Theatre Masque on March 5, 1934, and closed after only eight performances. It proved to be his sole attempt at writing. Two years later he made his Broadway debut as an actor in the Federal Theatre Project's ''Horse Eats Hat''. Additional theatre credits include the inaugural Mercury Theatre productions ''Caesar'' and ''The Shoemaker's Holiday'', ''Very Warm for May'', ''Cyrano de Bergerac'', ''Boyd's Daughter'' (which he also directed), '' Mary, Mary'', and '' 3 for Tonight''. He won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for '' Two's Company'' and ''How Now, Dow Jones''. Sherman debut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Shakespeare Theatre
The American Shakespeare Theatre was a theater company based in Stratford, Connecticut, United States. It was formed in the early 1950s by Lawrence Langner, Lincoln Kirstein, John Percy Burrell, and philanthropist Joseph Verner Reed. The American Shakespeare Festival Theatre was constructed and the program opened on July 12, 1955, with ''Julius Caesar''. The theater building burned to the ground on January 13, 2019. History Plays were produced at the Festival Theatre in Stratford from 1955 until the company ceased operations in the mid-1980s. The company focused on American interpretations of William Shakespeare's plays, but occasionally produced plays by other playwrights. Other playwrights included: T.S. Eliot, Bernard Shaw, Sophocles, Giuseppe Verdi, Thornton Wilder, and William Wycherley. When founded in 1955, the first artistic director was Denis Carey, who had managed The Old Vic. Under Carey's reign, the results were neither impressive financially nor artistically. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seán O'Casey
Seán O'Casey ( ga, Seán Ó Cathasaigh ; born John Casey; 30 March 1880 – 18 September 1964) was an Irish dramatist and memoirist. A committed socialist, he was the first Irish playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes. Early life O'Casey was born at 85 Upper Dorset Street, Dublin, as John Casey, the son of Michael Casey, a mercantile clerk (who worked for the Irish Church Missions), and Susan Archer. His parents were Protestants and he was a member of the Church of Ireland, baptised on 28 July 1880 in St. Mary's parish, confirmed at St John the Baptist Church in Clontarf, and an active member of St. Barnabas' Church on Sheriff Street until his mid-20s, when he drifted away from the church. There is a church called 'Saint Burnupus' in his play '' Red Roses For Me''. O'Casey's father died when Seán was just six years of age, leaving a family of thirteen. The family lived a peripatetic life thereafter, moving from house to house around north Dublin. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mercury Theatre
The Mercury Theatre was an independent repertory theatre company founded in New York City in 1937 by Orson Welles and producer John Houseman. The company produced theatrical presentations, radio programs and motion pictures. The Mercury also released promptbooks and phonographic recordings of four Shakespeare works for use in schools. After a series of acclaimed Broadway productions, the Mercury Theatre progressed into its most popular incarnation as ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air''. The radio series included one of the most notable and infamous radio broadcasts of all time, "The War of the Worlds", broadcast October 30, 1938. The ''Mercury Theatre on the Air'' produced live radio dramas in 1938–1940 and again briefly in 1946. In addition to Welles, the Mercury players included Ray Collins, Joseph Cotten, George Coulouris, Martin Gabel, Norman Lloyd, Agnes Moorehead, Paul Stewart, and Everett Sloane. Much of the troupe would later appear in Welles's films at RKO, parti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time. While in his 20s, Welles directed high-profile stage productions for the Federal Theatre Project, including an adaptation of ''Macbeth'' with an entirely African-American cast and the political musical '' The Cradle Will Rock''. In 1937, he and John Houseman founded the Mercury Theatre, an independent repertory theatre company that presented a series of productions on Broadway through 1941, including ''Caesar'' (1937), an adaptation of William Shakespeare's ''Julius Caesar''. In 1938, his radio anthology series ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air'' gave Welles the platform to find international fame as the director and narrator of a radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel ''The War of the Worlds'', which caused s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neighborhood Playhouse School Of The Theatre
The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre is a full-time professional conservatory for actors in New York City. First operational from 1915 to 1927, the school re-opened in 1928 and has been active ever since. It is the birthplace of the Meisner technique of acting, named for American actor and acting teacher Sanford Meisner. History The Neighborhood Playhouse had originally been founded as an off-Broadway theatre by philanthropists Alice Lewisohn and Irene Lewisohn in 1915, but closed in 1927. The following year, it re-opened as The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre with the addition of Rita Wallach Morgenthau. Neighborhood Playhouse joined American Academy of Dramatic Arts and Pasadena Playhouse as the only major professional training schools for the performing arts in the United States. Sanford Meisner joined the faculty in 1935 from the Group Theatre. Meisner used his study of Russian theatre and acting innovator Konstantin Stanislavski's system to de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Goodman Theatre
Goodman Theatre is a professional theater company located in Chicago's Loop. A major part of the Chicago theatre scene, it is the city's oldest currently active nonprofit theater organization. Part of its present theater complex occupies the landmark Harris and Selwyn Theaters property. History The Goodman was founded in 1925 as a tribute to the Chicago playwright Kenneth Sawyer Goodman, who died in the Great Influenza Pandemic in 1918. The theater was funded by Goodman's parents, Mr. and Mrs. William O. Goodman, who donated $250,000 to the Art Institute of Chicago to establish a professional repertory company and a school of drama at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The first theater was designed by architect Howard Van Doren Shaw (in the location now occupied by the museum's Modern Wing), although its design was severely hampered by location restrictions resulting in poor acoustics and lack of space for scenery and effects. The opening ceremony on October 20, 1925 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard II (play)
''The Life and Death of King Richard the Second'', commonly called ''Richard II'', is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written around 1595. It is based on the life of King Richard II of England (ruled 1377–1399) and chronicles his downfall and the machinations of his nobles. It is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by some scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays about Richard's successors: ''Henry IV, Part 1''; '' Henry IV, Part 2''; and ''Henry V''. Although the First Folio (1623) includes the play among the histories, the earlier Quarto edition of 1597 calls it ''The tragedie of King Richard the second''. Characters * King Richard II * John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster – Richard's uncle * Duke of York – Richard's uncle * Duke of Aumerle – York's son * Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk * Queen – Richard's wife (an unnamed composite of his first wife, Anne of Bohemia, and his second, Isabella of Valois, who was still a chil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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