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Conversation with Director Hal Prince and Extensive Shaw Festival Are Among Free Theater-Related Events at The Library for the Performing Arts
Live Video Webcast of Prince Conversation is Library's First
Shaw Festival Includes Appearances by Philip Bosco, Dana Ivey, Anne Jackson, Eli Wallach, and Eric Bentley
Hal Prince (center) directing Jack Gilford and Lotte Lenya in the original production of Cabaret, New York, 1966. The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Collection (Friedman-Abeles).
An Evening with Hal Prince, September 15
Legendary director-producer Hal Prince will appear Thursday, September 15 at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts to kick off the Library's 2005-2006 free public program season. The innovative Mr. Prince has spearheaded such memorable stage productions as Cabaret, Candide, Company, Damn Yankees, Evita, Fiddler on the Roof, Follies, Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures, The Phantom of the Opera, Sweeney Todd, and West Side Story and will discuss his career of more than 50 years in An Evening with Hal Prince, a conversation with the writer Foster Hirsch. Hal Prince has received 20 Tony Awards (more than anyone else in the theater), the National Medal of Arts, and has been a Kennedy Center Honoree. Foster Hirsch is the author of 16 books on theater and film and a professor of film at Brooklyn College. An expanded edition of his book Harold Prince and the American Musical Theatre was published this past April. This program will be the first event to be video webcast from The New York Public Library's website, www.nypl.org/lpaprograms.
Man or Superman?: The Art of George Bernard Shaw, September 17 - October 25
From September 17 to October 25, the Library for the Performing Arts will present Man or Superman?: The Art of George Bernard Shaw, a festival of play readings, lectures, panel discussions, film, and song. The festival marks the centennial of many Shavian events, including the writing and first performance of Major Barbara, the first performance of Man and Superman, and actor-producer Arnold Daly's successful, albeit scandalous Shavian season in New York. Daly produced a Shaw festival in New York in autumn 1905, presenting several plays including the New York premiere of Mrs. Warren's Profession. The play was closed after one performance, and Daly and the cast were arrested for disorderly conduct because of the play's depiction of prostitution.
Notable participants in the Library's Shaw programs include such award-winning actors as Philip Bosco, who has performed in eight productions of plays by Shaw; Dana Ivey, who has appeared both on stage and on television in Shaw plays; Anne Jackson, who appeared in Shaw's Arms and the Man; and Eli Wallach, who appeared in Shaw's Major Barbara.
The Shaw Festival starts September 17, with an appearance by two writers on theater who have not shied from controversy themselves. The venerable critic Eric Bentley, who wrote Bernard Shaw (1947), and the New York Post theater columnist and television host Michael Riedel will look at the controversial Shaw in Shaw in Perspective. In subsequent programs, Shaw's plays will be performed and parsed by a number of Shavian experts. Lady Susana Walton, the widow of Sir William Walton, the great 20th century composer who wrote the film score for Shaw's Major Barbara, will talk about her husband's work and introduce a screening of the film, directed by Gabriel Pascal and starring Wendy Hiller, Rex Harrison, Robert Morley, and Sybil Thorndike. Shaw scholar Leonard Conolly will give a lecture on Mrs. Warren's Profession , focusing on the play as well as the events surrounding the 1905 New York premiere and the court case. Why Shaw Still Matters? will be the subject of a panel discussion by Leonard Conolly, J. Ellen Gainor, Martin Meisel, Charlotte Moore, and Stanley Weintraub. Dr. Rhoda Nathan, President of the Bernard Shaw Society, will lecture on Arnold Daly, Shaw's Man in America . There will be a reading of Mrs. Warren's Profession with Dana Ivey as Mrs. Warren, directed by Charlotte Moore, Artistic Director of the Irish Repertory Theatre. The series will conclude with a program featuring songs from the musicals based on Shaw's plays, including My Fair Lady and The Chocolate Soldier, performed by members of the Metropolitan Opera Chorus.
"The Library for the Performing Arts takes pride in the free programs it offers to theater aficionados," commented Jacqueline Z. Davis, the Barbara G. and Lawrence A. Fleischman Executive Director of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. "Where else can audiences partake of such riches as the exploration of the magnificent career of Hal Prince, with the extraordinary director/producer himself giving insights; and the examination of the still-vital and relevant plays of George Bernard Shaw?"
The programs are presented in the Bruno Walter Auditorium at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center at 111 Amsterdam Avenue. Admission is free, and available on a first come, first seated basis, unless otherwise noted. For more information, please call 212.642.0142.
Schedule of Free Programs
Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson in Major Barbara, New York, 1957. The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Collection (Friedman-Abeles).
Thursday, September 15, 6:00 p.m. An Evening with Hal Prince in Conversation with Foster Hirsch
The renowned director of such musicals as Cabaret, Company, and Phantom of the Opera, discusses his work and career with author Foster Hirsch. The Library's collection of set models by designer Boris Aronson for Mr. Prince's productions will be on display the day of the program.
Saturday, September 17, 4:30 p.m. Shaw in Perspective: Eric Bentley in Conversation with Michael Riedel
An interview with Eric Bentley by Michael Riedel inaugurates the George Bernard Shaw series of readings, interviews, lectures, panel discussions, and songs.
Monday, September 19, 6:00 p.m. Shavian Readings with Philip Bosco, Anne Jackson, Eli Wallach, and Others
Among the plays and writings by and about Shaw, the program includes readings from Major Barbara and Man and Superman, which both premiered in 1905.
Wednesday, September 28, 3:00 p.m. An Afternoon with Lady Susana Walton
William Walton wrote the music for the film of Shaw's Major Barbara (1941). Walton's widow will talk about her husband's work and introduce a screening of the film, which was directed by Gabriel Pascal and starred Wendy Hiller, Rex Harrison, Robert Morley, and Sybil Thorndike. Shaw collaborated on the film script.
Thursday, September 29, 6:00 p.m. "A Superabundance of Foulness": Mrs. Warren's Profession, New York, 1905.
A lecture by Leonard Conolly. (The quote is from The New York Herald.)
Friday, September 30, 3:00 p.m. Why Shaw Still Matters?
A panel with Leonard Conolly, J. Ellen Gainor, Martin Meisel, Charlotte Moore, and Stanley Weintraub.
Saturday, October 15, 3:00 p.m. Shaw's Man in America: The Rise and Fall of Arnold Daly
Lecture by Rhoda Nathan, President of the Bernard Shaw Society.
Monday, October 24, 6:00 p.m. Reading of Mrs. Warren's Profession with Dana Ivey, Directed by Charlotte Moore
Dana Ivey as the title character in this reading of the play that was called "morally rotten" when it premiered in New York in October 1905. Cast members were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct.
Tuesday, October 25, 3:00 p.m. Shavian Musicals with Constance Green, Ellen Lang, Irwin Reese, John Russell, and Pianist Robert Rogers
Songs from musicals based on Shaw's plays, including Androcles and the Lion, The Chocolate Soldier, Her First Roman, and My Fair Lady will be performed by members of the Metropolitan Opera Chorus.
About The New York Public Library
The New York Public Library was created in 1895 with the consolidation of the private libraries of John Jacob Astor and James Lenox with the Samuel Jones Tilden Trust. The Library provides free and open access to its physical and electronic collections and information, as well as to its services. It comprises four research centers - the Humanities and Social Sciences Library; The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; and the Science, Industry and Business Library - and 85 Branch Libraries in Manhattan, Staten Island, and the Bronx. Research and circulating collections combined total more than 50 million items, including materials for the visually impaired. In addition, each year the Library presents thousands of exhibitions and public programs, which include classes in technology, literacy, and English as a second language. The Library serves some 13 million patrons who come through its doors annually and another 13 million users internationally, who access collections and services through the NYPL website, www.nypl.org.
About The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts houses the world's most extensive combination of circulating, reference, and rare archival collections in its field. Its divisions are the Circulating Collections, Jerome Robbins Dance Division, Music Division, Billy Rose Theatre Collection, and the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound. The materials in its collections are available free of charge, along with a wide range of special programs, including exhibitions, seminars, and performances. An essential resource for everyone with an interest in the arts-whether professional or amateur-the Library is known particularly for its prodigious collections of non-book materials such as historic recordings, videotapes, autograph manuscripts, correspondence, sheet music, stage designs, press clippings, programs, posters, and photographs.
