Tom Stoppard, the Czech-born English playwright who entwined erudition with imagination, verbal pyrotechnics with arch cleverness, and philosophical probing with heartache and lust in stage works that won accolades and awards on both sides of Atlantic, earning critical comparisons to Shakespeare and Shaw, has died at his home in Dorset, England. Read more
Tag: Playwrights
Denzel Washington Honors August Wilson’s Legacy at House Opening
The August Wilson House is not a museum. Instead, the restored space is a community center that will offer artist residencies, gathering spaces, fellowships and other programming for up-and-coming artists and scholars. There is also an outdoor stage behind the home, which is currently showcasing the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theater Company’s production of Wilson’s play “Jitney” through Sept. 18. Read more
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The Rediscovery of a Lost Black Playwright
The playwright Alice Childress, who lived from 1916 to 1994, never saw her work produced on Broadway. Unlike some of her Black contemporaries—Lorraine Hansberry, August Wilson—she wasn’t canonized or widely taught. In her later years, “she felt like she had been forgotten,” the dramaturge Arminda Thomas said the other day. Lately, though, Childress has been remembered. This past winter, her 1955 play, “Trouble in Mind,” about an actress navigating backstage racism, made its long-awaited Broadway début. And, this month, Theatre for a New Audience is staging her drama “Wedding Band” at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center, in Brooklyn, its first New York production in half a century. Read more
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Hell’s Kitchen Park Is Renamed For Famed Black Playwright
The half-acre green space known since 1979 as Hell’s Kitchen Park now bears a new name: Lorraine Hansberry Park, having been renamed this week in honor of the celebrated playwright. Read more
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