“Stephen Schwartz is one of the most influential forces in contemporary musical theatre. As a composer and lyricist, he’s created classics shows like “Pippin” and expanded the American songbook with tunes like “Meadowlark” and “Day By Day.””
(via Talking to Stephen Schwartz — TDF STAGES: A THEATRE MAGAZINE)
Shakespeare’s Curtain Theatre remains found
Archaeologists have discovered the remains of an Elizabethan theatre where some of William Shakespeare’s plays were first performed.
The remains of the Curtain Theatre, which opened in 1577, were found behind a pub in Shoreditch, east London, as part of regeneration works.
The venue was immortalised as “this wooden O” in the prologue to Henry V.
It is hoped the site could be opened to the public, with plays staged there in the future.
» via BBC
![PEN Translation chair Susan Bernofsky on translating Edward Albee.
Today’s edition of the Barcelona-based online magazine Núvol contains a long open letter to Albee by Joan Sellent, a highly respected translator into Catalan of works by Salman Rushdie, Paul Auster, Henry James, H. G. Wells and Charles Dickens as well as Albee. Sellent bitterly complains that Albee’s agent recently forced Sellent to
submit to you [Albee], as the author of the original text, an exhaustive five-column grid with the detailed specification of — I quote literally from the e-mail sent by your agent — “any deviation from the exact English words and the explanation why this couldn’t be directly translated into Spanish [sic], and why the words that were chosen were used.”
To any translator, the futility and humiliating time-consumingness of this piece of busywork will be instantly clear. If you’d like to see a detailed account of what is wrong with the request, I refer you to Sellent’s clear and cogent explanation, which he provides in both Catalan and English.
Click here to read more](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5tsgcOako1qdq50ro1_400.jpg)
PEN Translation chair Susan Bernofsky on translating Edward Albee.
Today’s edition of the Barcelona-based online magazine Núvol contains a long open letter to Albee by Joan Sellent, a highly respected translator into Catalan of works by Salman Rushdie, Paul Auster, Henry James, H. G. Wells and Charles Dickens as well as Albee. Sellent bitterly complains that Albee’s agent recently forced Sellent to
submit to you [Albee], as the author of the original text, an exhaustive five-column grid with the detailed specification of — I quote literally from the e-mail sent by your agent — “any deviation from the exact English words and the explanation why this couldn’t be directly translated into Spanish [sic], and why the words that were chosen were used.”
To any translator, the futility and humiliating time-consumingness of this piece of busywork will be instantly clear. If you’d like to see a detailed account of what is wrong with the request, I refer you to Sellent’s clear and cogent explanation, which he provides in both Catalan and English.
Tomorrow, June 28!
The staged reading of Chirping Hill, directed by Jeremy Bloom and sponsored by Soho Rep and the Austrian Cultural Forum, will be presented at 7:00 p.m. at the Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building on East 3rd Street. For more information on this and the other plays included in the festival, consult the Zeitgeist tumblr page.
via Susan Bernosfky, chair of the PEN Translation Committee
(via PEN.org » Blog Archive 2011 PEN Translation Fund Recipient Featured in Zeitgeist Festival …)
Save the date for the 10th anniversary ofBroadway Stands Up for Freedom, our annual star-studded concert to support the youth programs of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
The following is an excerpt from Anthony Ramirez’s “Jail Play,” which was awarded an Honorable Mention in Drama in PEN’s 2012 Prison Writing Contest.
SCENE 1
Setting: A dingy jail cell side-by-side with another cell already filled with one inmate.
Dottie Perkins, a tough-looking, stocky, large-breasted correctional officer drags Frankie Hart, an inmate, into an empty cell center-stage. Prisoner Johnny Reubensis already located in an adjoining cell, though the prisoners can’t see each other because a wall separates them—they speak through the cells. Frakie is resisting getting tossed in the cell.
DOTTIE: (TossingFrankie into the empty cell) Here you go Frankie. Back again none too soon. Couldn’t resist coming back could you? Is it my smile? Or my size that keeps you coming back to jail? (Laughs)
FRANKIE: (Crashing into the cell and settles as it closes) I tell you what Dottie, you gotta smile only a mother could love. Your size is a different story. (Looks over her breasts seductively)
photo by ℓαurα suαrez
Posted: 21 August 2012
Amnesty International today announced the shortlist for its annual Freedom of Expression Award at the Edinburgh Fringe.
The Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award, now in its ninth year, is presented in association with FEST magazine. This year saw a record number of entries, with 112 productions nominated.The award, given to an outstanding play carrying a human rights message, will be presented on Thursday 23 August at an afternoon reception (for invitees/media only, details below).
The short listed productions are:
- Why Do You Stand There In The Rain? by Pepperdine University at C Venues
- Mies Julie by Baxter Theatre Centre, South African State Theatre and Assembly at the Assemble Hall
- All That is Wrong by Ontroerend Goed, Laika, Richard Jordan Productions and the Drum Theatre Plymouth at The Traverse Theatre
- The Agony & Ecstasy of Steve Jobs by Mike Daisey at The Gilded Balloon
- Theatre Uncut at The Traverse Theatre
- The Two Worlds of Charlie F by The Bravo 22 Company at the Pleasance Courtyard
Shabnum Mustapha, Amnesty International’s Scotland Director, said:
“This has been another record-breaking year for the Freedom of Expression Award and it is extremely heartening to see so many productions tackling so many different human rights themes at the Edinburgh Fringe.
“For the last nine years, the Freedom of Expression Award has recognised productions which are both outstanding in their own right - and have the power to communicate, inform, inspire and challenge our perceptions about human rights. This year is no exception and the fact that we have six productions on the short list acknowledges the incredibly high calibre of performances which we have seen during the judging process.”
Neil Cooper, Writer and Critic for The Herald and one of the award’s judges, said:
“The fact that there are six so very different works in the short list for this year’s Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award speaks volumes about the range of concerns there are among artists taking part in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. This isn’t tokenism, however. Every production named on the short list isn’t there because they tick the right boxes or are saying the right things.Of course, what these productions are saying is important, but it is how they’re doing it that is so vital, and makes for such a rich set of artistic experiences that may change the world yet.”
Make Your Own Shakespearean Insults (Thou gleeking, crook-pated flap-dragon)! Shakespeare insult kit…
Source.
Amnesty International today announced the winner of its prestigious Freedom of Expression Award at the Edinburgh Fringe: Bravo 22 Company’s The Two Worlds of Charlie F, written by Owen Sheers and directed by Stephen Rayne.
The award, given to an outstanding Fringe production carrying a…
We are pleased to announce the winners and runners-up of the 2012 PEN Awards, the most comprehensive literary awards program in the country. This year marks PEN’s 90th anniversary. For more than 50 of those years PEN’s Literary Awards program has honored many of the most outstanding voices in literature.
This year, PEN will present 18 awards, fellowships, grants, and prizes—including two awards offered for the first time ever: the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, founded by Barbara Kingsolver and first established in 2000, and the PEN/Steven Kroll Award for text in an illustrated picture book. With the help of its partners and supporters, PEN will confer nearly $175,000 in 2012 to some of the most gifted writers and translators working today.
Award winners and runners-up will be honored at the 2012 PEN Literary Awards Ceremony on Tuesday, October 23, 2012, at CUNY Graduate Center’s Proshansky Auditorium in New York City.
PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, Founded by Barbara Kingsolver ($25,000):
WINNER: Susan Nussbaum, Good Kings Bad Kings
PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize ($25,000):
WINNER: Vanessa Veselka, Zazen
PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction ($25,000):
WINNER: E. L. Doctorow
PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award ($10,000):
WINNER: James Gleick, The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
Master American Dramatist: Christopher Durang
American Playwright in Mid-Career: Will Eno and Adam Rapp
PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay ($5,000):
WINNER: Christopher Hitchens, Arguably
PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing ($5,000):
WINNER: Dan Barry, Bottom of the 33rd: Hope, Redemption, and Baseball’s Longest Game
PEN/ESPN Lifetime Achievement Award for Literary Sports Writing ($5,000):
WINNER: Dan Jenkins
PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography ($5,000):
WINNER: Robert K. Massie, Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman
WINNER: Siddhartha Deb, The Beautiful and the Damned: A Portrait of the New India
PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship ($5,000):
WINNER: Sarah Dooley, Free Verse
PEN/Steven Kroll Award Honoring the Author of an Illustrated Children’s Book ($5,000):
WINNER: Patricia C. McKissack, Never Forgotten
PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry ($5,000):
WINNER: Toi Derricotte
PEN Award for Poetry in Translation ($3,000):
WINNER: Jen Hofer, Negro Marfil/Ivory Black by Myriam Moscona
PEN/Edward and Lily Tuck Award for Paraguayan Literature ($3,000):
WINNER: Delfina Acosta, Versos de amor y de locura
PEN Translation Prize ($3,000):
WINNER: Bill Johnston, Stone Upon Stone by Wiesław Myśliwski
PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation:
WINNER: Margaret Sayers Peden
PEN Translation Fund Grants ($1,000-3,000):
Bernard Adams, Alexander Booth, Brent Edwards, Joshua Daniel Edwin, Musharraf Ali Farooqi, Deborah Garfinkle, Hillary Gulley, Bonnie Huie, Jacquelyn Pope, Matt Reeck and Aftab Ahmad, Carrie Reed, Nathanaël.
Click here for more information about the prizes, lists of the runners-up, and the winning stories.
