Yale Performs Romeo and Juliet
Mar. 11-Apr. 2, New Haven, CT: Yale Repertory Theatre performs Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Directed by Shana Cooper, the production updates the story by garbing the actors in contemporary dress. Click here for more details.
OSF Stages Julius Caesar
Mar. 23-Nov. 6, Ashland, OR: The Oregon Shakespeare Festival stages Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, directed by Amanda Dehnert. Click for info.
Gilbert and Sullivan at Harvard
Mar. 31-Apr. 3, Cambridge, MA: The Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert and Sullivan Players presents The Yeomen of the Guard. An operetta, the production "takes a traditionally topsy-turvy Gilbert and Sullivan love story and places it in the 'grim old fortalice' of the Tower of London." Click here for more details.
Phaedra at U of Tennessee
Mar. 31-Apr. 10, Knoxville, TN: The Clarence Brown Studio Series performs Jean Racine's Phaedra at University of Tennessee's Lab Theatre. Professor Klaus van den Berg directs. For info, click here.
Shakespeare in the Trailer Park
Apr. 1-10, Ridley Park, PA: The Barnstormers Theater presents Shakespeare in the Trailer Park, a play that combines Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Merchant of Venice, and Hamlet all into one. Set in Frog Level, Virginia, the Barnstormers play features two trailer parks that battle over which has to be bulldozed to make way for the arrival of a new Walmart. Click here for info.
Gogol in Georgia
Apr. 7-9, Atlanta, GA: Georgia Shakespeare performs The Government Inspector at Oglethorpe University. The play is a fresh and funny adaptation by Jeffrey Hatcher of Nikolai Gogol's original about a "Russian village" in a panic over a surprise visit from a government inspector. For details, click here.
Red Noses at Wofford College
Apr. 7-Apr. 16, Spartanburg, SC: By Peter Barnes, Red Noses takes place in mid-1300s Europe in the era of the Black Plague. The 1978 play (first performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1985) features a priest who turns a group of misfits into "deeply untalented circus performers." Click here for more info.
Bergman's Autumn Sonata
Apr. 15-May 7, New Haven, CT: Yale Repertory Theatre presents the U.S. premiere stage adaptation of the Ingmar Bergman film Autumn Sonata. About a celebrated classical pianist, the story is a "tightly wound psychological study of the complicated relationship between mothers and daughters." For further details, click here.
Macbeth by the RSC
Apr. 16-Oct. 6, Stratford-upon-Avon, UK: The Royal Shakespeare Company performs the Scottish tragedy, with Jonathan Slinger as Macbeth. Directed by Michael Boyd, the production is the first to be staged in Stratford's newly transformed Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Click here for details.
Pulitzer Prize Winner at OSF
Apr. 20-Nov. 5, Ashland, OR: Oregon Shakespeare Festival debuts its production of the Pulitzer Prize- winning August: Osage County, by Tracy Letts. The play focuses on "three damaged sisters" and "their pill-popping mother." Click for info.
WRITING CONTESTS Kent State U Poetry Prize
May 2 deadline, Kent, OH: Eligible to enter the contest is anyone who has not yet published a full-length book of poetry. The award, known as the Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize, includes $2,000, publication (by Kent State University Press) of the winner's first full-length book of poetry, and a public reading of the poems (with contest judge Edward Hirsh). For more details, click here.
National Poetry Month: A Top-Ten List
Top-ten lists can be infectious. Dean Rader (writer for SFGate.com, poet, and professor at the University of San Francisco), in the past few weeks, asked his readers to suggest the Ten Greatest Poets of All Time, and he came up with his own list as well. Since April is National Poetry Month, it's a perfect time to ponder the results.
Radar received suggestions ranging from Langston Hughes, to Yehuda Amichai, Elizabeth Bishop, and poets who made his own personal list (shown below). To create the list, Radar kept in mind three criteria: how deeply the poet has permeated our culture; the poet's degree of influence on other writers; the poet’s ability to "craft out of the chaos of emotion and language, something artful."
National Poetry Month
Poetry Month poster with lines from
Elizabeth Bishop's
"A Word with You."
Here, in reverse order, are Radar's Ten Greatest Poets of All Time:
10. Rumi
9. William Butler Yeats
8. Li Po
7. Emily Dickinson
6. John Donne
5. Wallace Stevens
4. Walt Whitman
3. Dante Alighieri
2. William Shakespeare
1. Pablo Neruda
Google's Legal Setback, Our Literary Conundrum
Still in its infancy, publishing in the digital age has just weathered a significant growing pain. On March 22, 2011, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York rejected Google’s proposed settlement of a class-action suit. Here are the facts:
• In 2004 Google decided to digitize all books held by a series of major libraries.
• To date Google has scanned more than 15,000 volumes.
• In 2005 the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers sued Google for "massive copyright infringement."
• In 2008 (Oct. 28), the opposing parties settled The Authors Guild v. Google, Inc. with Google agreeing to pay out $125 million ($45 million of this for copyright violations).
• The agreement, if approved by the courts, would allow Google to pursue its project, protected from liability for infringing the rights of "orphan works"—works still under copyright but missing an identifiable copyright owner.
• In 2011 (Mar. 22) Judge Denny Chin denied approval to The Authors Guild v. Google, Inc. to keep Google from gaining a) the right to exploit books without the authors’ permission; b) unfair advantage over competitors; c) control over the search market.
Along with publishers and authors, a third group feels the effect of Judge Chin's decision: readers. Less is made easily available to them, which seems to be something of a trend. In 1978, readers suffered a similar setback from a new law on "when books pass into the public domain." According to Duke University Public Domain Center, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, for one, would have passed into the public domain this year if the law hadn’t extended a book's copyright (from 56 to 70 years from the date of the writer’s death). Both decisions give rise to the same ambiguous question: If less is easily available, who's the winner and who's the loser here?
L to R: Judge Chin; a public-domain text in 2025.
Dying with Laughter: Moličre's Invalid at OSF
How astonishing! Moličre himself was ill when he wrote The Imaginary Invalid, a comedy set in 1670s Paris about Argan, a hypochondriac with a fear of death. The playwright performed the part and collapsed onstage during the show, dying that same day. An uncanny beginning, one might say, for a play that inspires such wild laughter today. Oded Gross and Tray Young have adapted the original for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, updating the setting to 1960s Paris. David Kelly plays Argan the invalid. Argan believes he is mortally ill and his doctors concur, prescribing leeches, tonics, enemas, and more. Among the household members are a sassy but loyal maid, a dutiful daughter, a devious wife, and, added by this adaptation, a second, older daughter. Hand in hand with the 1960s setting goes a dazzling mix of costumes: go-go boots, a white vinyl doctor's coat, red-sequined boxer shorts. The production is "hip," "topical," "irreverant," "wonderful," reviewers rave. And it not only satirizes those who blindly follow the latest medical fads; it also delivers a message: "I'm too busy staying alive," says Argan. "I don’t have time to experience life." Well, take the time, the play intimates (and laugh while you're at it!). Click below for a brief clip.
