AFTERNOON SALON AND EVENING SOS PROGRAMS IN MANHATTAN
On the afternoon of January 29, in a conversation with eminent poetry editor Alice Quinn, we launched a new series of Salon gatherings at the National Arts Club (15 Gramercy Park South). Among the participants in this scintillating conversation were two prestigious sculptors, Babette Bloch and Marc Mellon, who will be our guests for a similar event at 2 p.m. on Monday, February 25. At 8 p.m. the following night, Tuesday, February 26, we'll resume our signature Speaking of Shakespeare series at the NAC with playwright and director Nagle Jackson.
A few weeks later, at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, March 13, we'll be next door at The Players (16 Gramercy Park South) for a special evening with multitalented performer Jim Dale, a musical artist who has written such hit songs as "Georgy Girl" and "Sugartime," an actor who worked with Laurence Olivier's National Theatre Company and later won a Tony Award for his title role in "Barnum," and a narrator who holds two Grammy Awards for his recordings of "Harry Potter." The next day, at 8 p.m. on Thursday, March 14, we'll be back at the NAC for an SOS conversation with Ethan McSweeny, who has recently become Artistic Director of the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Virginia.
We'll then conclude an eventful week on Friday the Ides of March, with an NAC Salon that will feature a special tour of The Players. Raymond Wemmlinger, who oversees the Hampden-Booth Theatre Library and presides over The Players Foundation, will welcome us to the final home of the club's founder, Edwin Booth. One of the tragedian's favorite roles, Brutus, a character he'd portrayed during a benefit presentation of Julius Caesar on November 25, 1864, at New York's Winter Garden Theatre, was destined to be made notorious by the actor's younger brother, who staged his own "lofty scene" five months later on April 14, 1865, at Ford's Theatre in Washington. That performance and its traumatic aftermath will be one of many topics to be pondered during an unusually resonant gathering. For background on what has been described as the most dramatic moment in American history, click here and follow the blue links in the opening paragraph.
We're now arranging attractions to commemorate Shakespeare's 455th birthday, and among them will be a 2 p.m. Salon on Tuesday, April 23, at the National Arts Club with filmmaker Melinda Hall, who'll talk about the fascinating interviews she's recorded with stars such as F. Murray Abraham, Cicely Berry, Stacy Keach, Sir Ben Kingsley, Estelle Parsons, and Liev Schreiber for a remarkable YouTube series called How Shakespeare Changed My Life. A few hours later we'll move next door to The Players for a 7 p.m. presentation of Ever the Twain: William Shakespeare in Mark Twain's America, drawing on a script that has been presented twice at the Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe. The following day, at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, April 24, we'll enjoy a delightful overview about The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey with Artistic Director Bonnie J. Monte.
Looking ahead, we're delighted to note that actor John Douglas Thompson will join us for a 2 p.m. Salon at the NAC on Tuesday, May 14, where he'll talk, among other things, about his role as the Earl of Kent in the Broadway presentation of an acclaimed King Lear with Glenda Jackson in the title role. A few hours later we'll move next door to The Players for a 7 p.m. SOS gathering with actress Michael Learned, best known to television audiences as Olivia Walton, John-Boy's mother, in The Waltons, but equally familiar to New York theatergoers for her roles in such Broadway classics as Edward Albee's Three Tall Women and Gore Vidal's The Best Man. Additional programs, both at the NAC and at The Players, will be announced shortly.
Our most recent offerings in an SOS series that is now in its third decade occurred in two of New York's most celebrated venues. We opened an eventful sequence of programs at 8 p.m. Monday, January 28, in the Grand Gallery of the National Arts Club at 15 Gramercy Park South, where we talked with actor, director, producer, and author Dakin Matthews. Dakin is currently charming audiences as Judge Taylor in an acclaimed Broadway presentation of To Kill a Mockingbird, and during what turned out to be a memorable evening he discussed not only his pivotal role in that play but his many contributions to the presentation of other classics on stage and screen. Then, to everyone's surprise and delight, he concluded an extroardinary gathering with a brief master class on scansion, focusing brilliantly on ways to approach a famous speech in The Merchant of Venice.
The following night, Tuesday, January 29, we moved next door to the venerable Dining Room and Theatre of The Players at 16 Gramercy Park South for a 7 p.m. gathering with Frog & Peach, a company that was founded by distinguished members of The Actors Studio to explore new approaches to Shakespeare's classics. Between February 22 and March 17 this energetic troupe will present Twelfth Night at the Sheen Center (18 Bleecker Street), and director Lynnea Benson and her talented performers offered vivid illustrations of the artistry of an ensemble that has featured such luminaries as Karen Lynn Gorney, Earl Hyman, and Austin Pendleton.
Earlier that day, at 2 p.m. on Tuesday the 29th in the beautiful Parlor of the National Arts Club, the Guild helped the NAC inaugurate a new series of Afternoon Salons, focusing a gentle spotlight on Alice Quinn of the Poetry Society of America, who spoke with warmth and eloquence about her work with some of the most influential writers of our era. Among the participants in this scintillating conversation were two prestigious sculptors, Babette Bloch and Marc Mellon, who will be our guests for a similar gathering on Monday, February 25.
The Speaking engagement that concluded our SOS offerings for 2018 occurred at 7 p.m. on Monday, November 26, at The Players, where we hosted a fervent tribute to the Drama Book Shop, an institution whose vital assistance to Broadway, and to the nation's performing-arts community as a whole, has been recegnized by a special Tony Award. Among our eloquent speakers for that occasion were president Rozanne Seelen and vice-president Allen Lee Hubby of the Shop, actors Jim Dale, Jeffrey Hardy, and Peter Maloney, and writer Adam Gopnik of The New Yorker, who emphasized how essential cultural treasures like these are to the civic health of democratic societies. For vital assistance with this event we were indebted, not only to musical artist Shana Farr of The Players, but to such Shop stalwarts as authors Nancy Reardon and Tom Flynn. We now know from an upbeat January 8th article in the New York Times that even more credit is due to Lin-Manuel Miranda and his Hamliton colleagues, who have purchased the Shop and will reopen it a few months hence in a new location. For previous highlights in the Guild's signature Speaking series, click here.
OFFERING SHAKESPEARE IN THE GARDEN TO SANTA FE AUDIENCES
During the last two summers the Guild has co-produced SHAKESPEARE IN THE GARDEN, collaborating with the Santa Fe Botanical Garden and Shakespeare in Santa Fe on presentations of The Tempest in 2017 and A Midsummer Night's Dream in 2018. We're now teaming up with a new artistic partner, Santa Fe Classic Theater, for a Romeo and Juliet that will be directed by Patrick Briggs and presented in SFBG's beautiful amphitheater in June. Details will be forthcoming shortly, but in the interim we'll welcome support from Bardtenders who'd like to be involved in another season of theatrical enchantment. For background and additional information, click here.
THE GUILD'S 2018 GIELGUD AWARD CEREMONY IN LONDON
We're delighted to report that the recipient of our 2018 Gielgud trophy, presented at a UK Theatre Awards luncheon on October 14 in London's venerable Guildhall, is director, producer, filmmaker, and author Sir Richard Eyre. Sir Richard's riveting television production of King Lear, with Sir Anthony Hopkins in the title role, debuted recently on Amazon Prime Video. Meanwhile his evocative feature film, The Children Act, co-starring Emma Thompson and Stanley Tucci and featuring Fionn Whitehead in a screenplay by novelist Ian McEwan, is gripping moviegoers around the globe.
Bestowing this year's award was Sir Ian McKellen, our inaugural Gielgud laureate, who was himself appearing in a West End staging of King Lear that had been shared cinematically with audiences throughout the world. When he received his own trophy, during a ceremony at the Folger Shakespeare Library on May 20, 1996, Sir Ian had graced the occasion not only with praise for Sir John, but with a powerful recitation from The Booke of Sir Thomas Moore, relating the words that Shakespeare had composed for the script's title character to what Justice Anthony Kennedy had said earlier that day while he was delivering a pivotal Supreme Court ruling that "no state may 'deem a class of persons a stranger to its laws.'" As he presented this year's award, Sir Ian recalled how much Gielgud did, not only to exemplify meticulous standards in his own presentations of Shakespeare and other playwrights, but to encourage and support the efforts of other performers, among them those who were just beginning their careers. Sir Ian extolled Richard Eyre for the same qualities, and he emphasized how much everyone who cherishes the dramatic arts has benefited from his many contributions to our cultural lives.
In response, Sir Richard praised McKellen as "a wonderful actor and a very good friend, and the natural artistic son of John Gielgud." And he amplified Sir Ian's remarks about Sir John, observing that Gielgud's focus on building strong repertory ensembles prepared the way for such institutions as the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. With this in mind he noted, in an aside that was fervently applauded by an appreciative UK Theatre audience, that he was "constantly bewildered by the fact that local authorities and government can't see what an extraordinary, unique asset" such treasures are, not only in London but throughout the United Kingdom.
Among the numerous media accounts of the festivities were stories in BBC News, BT.com, Irish News, and York Press. Click here for visual highlights of what turned out to be a deeply moving occasion. And click here for background on the Award.
For more detail about the Guild's 2018-19 programming, click here. If you wish to join and receive periodic updates, we invite you to visit our MEMBERSHIP page for types of affiliation. There you'll find a link to a page where you can register for events, enroll as a Guild member, or provide a tax-exempt DONATION.
