The premier of David Wagoner's one-act play First Class opened last night at Seattle's A Contemporary Theatre (ACT).For Wagoner the play is a "remembrance of his friend and mentor, the legendary poet Theodore Roethke. In this world premiere, you’re a student in Roethke’s classroom. Why does art matter? When does genius become madness? And what does it mean to live a passionate life? Please discuss."Seattle actor John Aylward plays the lead and does so so convincingly that Wagoner says "he's absolutely channeling Roethke in many instances."Roethke is a legend around these parts. His time here in Seattle raised the literary...
Maurice Sendak’s First Pop-Up Book
Harry Potter isn't the only thing Scholastic is doing right. Late last year they published the first pop-up book illustrated by Maurice Sendak. Mommy! was a collaboration between Sendak, author Arthur Yorinks and the noted paper engineer Matthew Reinhart. The book's beginnings can be traced to a play written and directed by Arthur Yorinks called It's Alive for the Night Kitchen Radio Theater Company (which was founded by Yorinks and Sendak). The story is about a baby's search for his mother in a haunted house. "Unlike a traditional picture book, a pop-up book requires that a great deal more original...
Two Grande Dames of Bookselling Hit the Stage
Update: Stephen Wells has a review of the play in the New York Times ; Two Women, Rare Books: A Small, Literate Musical. He calls it a "promising new musical being given its first breath of life at the New Jersey Repertory Company."One of the unanswered questions in his mind with the play was the sexual orientation of Rostenberg and Stern. It was clear that they were soul mates but unclear if they were lovers."It is fine if they are not lovers, but that needs to be made clear, and then certain questions need to be answered. Are they asexual?...
Books To Be Desired: Penelope Umbrico’s Private Residence
How many unsolicited home improvement magazines arrive in your mailbox?I would guess these companies have figured out how many one home should receive to maintain the cultural desire needed for them to succeed; just enough to keep you thinking that your lacking something or in need of something.In Private Residence Umbirico re-photographs selected details of the images contained in these magazines to explore the "fictional narratives found in the images of idealized rooms," she is interested in "how corporations construct publicly accessible “private” spaces in media - and how this works to produce desire, and the illusion of control, agency...
Wilde Times
image Chris Ketchell "The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands." - Oscar Wilde The Soul of Man Under Socialism Aside from his success as an author and playwright Wilde was also a major celebrity in Victorian London. In many respects his celebrity mirrors the path of many of today's celebrities (Martha Stewart and Paris Hilton immediately come to mind) where the prevailing culture hoists them up then tears them down with no mercy. My Wilde phase took place in England in the...