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Tom O'Horgan
Tom O'Horgan (May 3, 1924 – January 11, 2009) was an American theatre and film director, composer, actor and musician. He is best known for his Broadway work as director of the hit musicals '' Hair'' and ''Jesus Christ Superstar''. During his career he sought to achieve a form of "total theater" described by ''The New York Times'' as "wittily physical", and which earned him a reputation as the "Busby Berkeley of the acid set". Biography Early years Born in Chicago, Illinois, O'Horgan was introduced to theater by his father, a newspaper owner and sometimes actor, who took him to shows and built him footlights and a wind machine. As a child he sang in churches and wrote operas, including one entitled ''Doom of the Earth'' at age 12."Tom O'Horgan, 84, Director of ''Hair'', Is Dead" by Dou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1 = U.S. state, State , subdivision_type2 = List of counties in Illinois, Counties , subdivision_name1 = Illinois , subdivision_name2 = Cook County, Illinois, Cook and DuPage County, Illinois, DuPage , established_title = Settled , established_date = , established_title2 = Municipal corporation, Incorporated (city) , established_date2 = , founder = Jean Baptiste Point du Sable , government_type = Mayor–council government, Mayor–council , governing_body = Chicago City Council , leader_title = Mayor of Chicago, Mayor , leader_name = Lori Lightfo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wind Machine
The wind machine (also called an aeoliphone or aelophon) is a friction idiophone used to produce the sound of wind for orchestral compositions and musical theater productions. Construction The wind machine is constructed of a large cylinder made up of several wooden slats which measures approximately in diameter. The cylinder body of the instrument rests upon a stand and is typically covered with silk, canvas, or other material which is in a fixed position. A crank handle, used by the player to rotate the cylinder and create the sound, is attached to the cylinder. Another method of construction implements an electric fan, which is fitted with lengths of cane, rather than blades. However, this method is less popular because it does not provide the player with the ability to control the speed of rotation. Technique The wind machine is played by rotating the crank handle, which is attached to the cylinder, to create friction between the wooden slats and the material cov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club (La MaMa E.T.C.) is an Off-Off-Broadway theatre founded in 1961 by Ellen Stewart, African-American theatre director, producer, and fashion designer. Located in Manhattan's East Village, the theatre began in the basement boutique where Stewart sold her fashion designs. Stewart turned the space into a theatre at night, focusing on the work of young playwrights. La MaMa has evolved during its fifty-year history into a world-renowned cultural institution. Background Stewart started La MaMa as a theatre dedicated to the playwright and primarily producing new plays, including works by Paul Foster, Jean-Claude van Itallie, Lanford Wilson, Sam Shepard, Adrienne Kennedy, Harvey Fierstein, and Rochelle Owens. La MaMa also became an international ambassador for Off-Off-Broadway theatre by touring downtown theatre abroad during the 1960s.Bottoms, Steven J. ''Playing Underground: A Critical History of the 1960s Off-Off-Broadway Movement''. Ann Arbor: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ellen Stewart
Ellen Stewart (November 7, 1919 – January 13, 2011) was an American theatre director and producer and the founder of La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. During the 1950s she worked as a fashion designer for Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, Lord & Taylor, and Henri Bendel. Early life Ellen Stewart's place of birth is either Chicago, Illinois or Alexandria, Louisiana. This uncertainty stems from Stewart's reticence to reveal details of her early life. As an observer wrote, "Her history is somewhat difficult to sort out—indeed it takes on a legendary quality—since on different occasions she gives different versions of the same stories." Stewart said that her father was a tailor from Louisiana and her mother was a teacher, and that they divorced during her youth. Around 1939, Stewart may have become the second wife of Larry Lebanus Hovell (August 10, 1910October 1963), a Chicago waiter who was a native of Alexandria, Louisiana, though it is possible they never wed lega ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Wigfall
James Wigfall (1942–1978) was an African-American theater artist best known for his early contributions to La MaMa ETC and his role as the Cowardly Lion in the Broadway musical ''The Wiz''. Career Wigfall appeared in several of the earliest productions staged at La MaMa—including in two separate productions of ''The Maids'' (1964 and 1972) and Tom Eyen's ''Three Drag Queens from Daytona'' in 1973. He explained his reason for wanting to reprise ''The Maids'' in 1972 to a reporter from the ''New York Daily News'' as being related to "the political aspects of the play." He believed ''The Maids'' was "about love and hate and self-hate". He later appeared on Broadway in several roles, including as The Cop/The Bishop in Julian Barry's ''Lenny'' at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre (1971–1972), and as the Cowardly Lion alongside Stephanie Mills in ''The Wiz'' at the Majestic Theatre and Broadway Theatre (1977–1979). Tom O'Horgan credited Wigfall with introducing him to La Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caffe Cino
Caffe Cino was an Off-Off-Broadway theater founded in 1958 by Joe Cino. The West Village coffeehouse, located at 31 Cornelia Street, was initially conceived as a venue for poetry, folk music, and visual art exhibitions. The plays produced at the Cino, however, became most prominent, and it is now considered the "birthplace of Off-Off-Broadway". Beginnings and early productions Joe Cino was born into an Italian-American family, and moved from Buffalo, New York to be a dancer in New York City. After 10 years, he used his $400 in savings and opened the Caffe Cino Art Gallery. Initially, Cino encouraged his friends to hang their artwork on the walls. That led to poetry readings, which led to staged readings and eventually to productions of plays. During the early days of the Cino, plays were produced on the floor. A makeshift 8x8-foot stage was later created using milk cartons and carpet remnants. Productions were initially limited to 30 minutes, and the audience could stand anyw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Experimental Theatre
Experimental theatre (also known as avant-garde theatre), inspired largely by Wagner's concept of Gesamtkunstwerk, began in Western theatre in the late 19th century with Alfred Jarry and his Ubu plays as a rejection of both the age in particular and, in general, the dominant ways of writing and producing plays. The term has shifted over time as the mainstream theatre world has adopted many forms that were once considered radical. Like other forms of the avant-garde, it was created as a response to a perceived general cultural crisis. Despite different political and formal approaches, all avant-garde theatre opposes bourgeois theatre. It tries to introduce a different use of language and the body to change the mode of perception and to create a new, more active relation with the audience. Relationships to audience Famed experimental theatre director and playwright Peter Brook describes his task as building "… a necessary theatre, one in which there is only a practical difference ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Off-Off-Broadway
Off-off-Broadway theaters are smaller New York City theaters than Broadway and off-Broadway theaters, and usually have fewer than 100 seats. The off-off-Broadway movement began in 1958 as part of a response to perceived commercialism of the professional theatre scene and as an experimental or avant-garde movement of drama and theatre. Over time, some off-off-Broadway productions have moved away from the movement's early experimental spirit. History The off-off-Broadway movement began in 1958 as a "complete rejection of commercial theatre". Michael Smith gives credit for the term's coinage to Jerry Tallmer in 1960. Among the first venues for what would soon be called "off-off-Broadway" theatre were coffeehouses in Greenwich Village, particularly the Caffe Cino at 31 Cornelia Street, operated by the eccentric Joe Cino, who early on took a liking to actors and playwrights and agreed to let them stage plays there without bothering to read the plays first, or to even find out m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Off-Broadway
An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer than 100. An "off-Broadway production" is a production of a play, musical, or revue that appears in such a venue and adheres to related trade union and other contracts. Some shows that premiere off-Broadway are subsequently produced on Broadway. History The term originally referred to any venue, and its productions, on a street intersecting Broadway in Midtown Manhattan's Theater District, the hub of the American theatre industry. It later became defined by the League of Off-Broadway Theatres and Producers as a professional venue in Manhattan with a seating capacity of at least 100, but not more than 499, or a production that appears in such a venue and adheres to related trade union and other contracts. Previously, regardless of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid digital subscribers. It also is a producer of popular podcasts such as '' The Daily''. Founded in 1851 by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones, it was initially published by Raymond, Jones & Company. The ''Times'' has won 132 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any newspaper, and has long been regarded as a national "newspaper of record". For print it is ranked 18th in the world by circulation and 3rd in the U.S. The paper is owned by the New York Times Company, which is publicly traded. It has been governed by the Sulzberger family since 1896, through a dual-class share structure after its shares became publicly traded. A. G. Sulzberger, the paper's publisher and the company's chairman, is the fifth generation of the family to head the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Theater
Ancient Greek theatre was a theatrical culture that flourished in ancient Greece from 700 BC. The city-state of Athens, which became a significant cultural, political, and religious place during this period, was its centre, where the theatre was institutionalised as part of a festival called the Dionysia, which honoured the god Dionysus. Tragedy (late 500 BC), comedy (490 BC), and the satyr play were the three dramatic genres to emerge there. Athens exported the festival to its numerous colonies. Modern Western theatre comes, in large measure, from the theatre of ancient Greece, from which it borrows technical terminology, classification into genres, and many of its themes, stock characters, and plot elements. Etymology The word grc, τραγῳδία, tragoidia, label=none, from which the word "tragedy" is derived, is a compound of two Greek words: grc, τράγος, tragos, label=none or "goat" and grc, ᾠδή, ode, label=none meaning "song", from grc, ἀείδειν, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ibsen
Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playwrights of his time. His major works include ''Brand'', ''Peer Gynt'', ''An Enemy of the People'', ''Emperor and Galilean'', '' A Doll's House'', '' Hedda Gabler'', ''Ghosts'', ''The Wild Duck'', ''When We Dead Awaken'', ''Rosmersholm'', and ''The Master Builder''. Ibsen is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare, and ''A Doll's House'' was the world's most performed play in 2006. Ibsen's early poetic and cinematic play ''Peer Gynt'' has strong surreal elements. After ''Peer Gynt'' Ibsen abandoned verse and wrote in realistic prose. Several of his later dramas were considered scandalous to many of his era, when European theatre was expected to model strict morals of family life and propriety. Ibsen's later wor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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