Ira Levin, 1929 – 2007, was a versatile author and playwright. After he graduated from college, having attended attended Drake University in Iowa, the Horace Mann School, and New York University, he wrote training films and scripts for radio and television. Levin’s first produced play was No Time for Sergeants , which he adapted from a […]
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Okay, be honest and show me your hands. How many people thought Arsenic and Old Lace was written by Agatha Christie? I’ll admit that when I first heard the title years ago I thought it must be a Christie story. It just sounded like something she would write. She did write several plays, and it
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When I went looking for a playwright with a name that begins with the letter ‘j’, I was surprised to find so many. I was also surprised to see that James Joyce had written plays. I didn’t know that. I am familiar with his novels, only because I was forced to read them in college,
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William Inge is another American playwright for whom I have a great deal of respect. He was born in Kansas in 1913 and died in 1973.His body of work is impressive, and like many highly creative people he was often plagued by doubts. When one of his best known plays, Come Back, Little Sheba was
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When I first learned about Lillian Hellman and her passion for writing, I wanted to be her. I was also intrigued by her passion for life and love and her unconventional lifestyle. She traveled extensively, flirted with communism, and had a 30 year relationship with the mystery writer Dashiell Hammett. The relationship started even before
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Today I thought I would feature a woman playwright and found an interesting one indeed. Like so many other writers, she, too, worked on both sides of the script, and won honors and recognition for both. Ruth Gordon Jones was born in 1896 in Massachusetts and died in 1985, and I love this old picture
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As in Horton Foote, one of the most notable American playwrights who hailed from Texas. He was born in 1916 and died in 2009. I had the honor of meeting him at a several screenwriting seminars and film festivals in the Dallas area, and he was so kind to an aspiring screenwriter. I still treasure
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If I ever get back to New York, one play that I want to see is “Evita”, the Tony award-winning musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. It’s based on the life of Argentine political leader Eva Perón, the second wife of Argentine president Juan Perón, starting with her early life then her
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Set design can range from extreme minimalist to building intricate rooms and buildings. I first learned about minimalist when my kids were studying theatre in high school and entering play competitions. Here in the United States high schools and middle schools compete in University Interscholastic League (UIL) competitions, and the sets, costumes and props are
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One of the better known playwrights whose name starts with “C” is Sir Noël Coward who was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, born in 1899 and died in 1973. He had quite a flamboyant personality, on stage and off, and Time magazine once referred to his sense of personal style as “a
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