Performing Arts

Stephen Park in Steppenwolf Theatre's production of East of Eden.

Stephen Park On Playing A Code-Switching Character In Steinbeck's 'East Of Eden'

10:47am November 03, 2015

by Amy Yee

Park plays Lee, a Chinese servant with an interesting approach to getting by in America, in a new theatrical adaptation of John Steinbeck's classic.

David Hare's plays and screenplays include Plenty, Skylight, The Blue Room, The Hours and Stuff Happens.

Books
Arts

Dramatist David Hare Says, Like Many Writers, He's Driven By Doubt

8:22am October 31, 2015

by NPR Staff

"My ability to see what's going on in a room or analyze what's going on inside a person comes from my own doubts about what's going on inside myself," he says. Hare's memoir is The Blue Touch Paper.

Stephen Van Cleef, a fictional Seneca Village resident played by Billy Eugene Jones (left), meets a New York City police officer, played by Andy Truschinski, in The People Before the Park at Premiere Stages at Kean University in Union, N.J.

Lives Displaced By Central Park Take Center Stage In New Play

6:24am October 20, 2015

by Hansi Lo Wang

The land that became New York City's Central Park was once home to Manhattan's first-known community of African-American property owners. A new play explores how eminent domain forced them out.

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The Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Allen Elizabethan Theatre, featuring a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Arts

O Romeo, Romeo, What The Heck Are You Saying?

11:14am October 17, 2015

by Aaron Scott

Wherefore art "thou"? Why not "you" instead? The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is making an ambitious — and controversial — attempt to rewrite the Bard's plays into modern-day English.

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Arts

After Decades On Stage, Arthur Miller's Works Defy The Final Curtain

10:48am October 17, 2015

by Tom Vitale

The great American playwright was born a century ago Saturday. An activist as much as he was a writer, Miller challenged social ills in playscripts — and set a new standard for the citizen-artist.

Hasan Minhaj performs in his new one-man show "Homecoming King".

Arts

Hasan Minhaj Of 'Daily Show' On Prom, Indian Dads And White Folks At Desi Weddings

2:30pm October 15, 2015

by Elizabeth Blair

Homecoming King is the comedian's absorbing tale about the first-generation American experience and the NBA (New Brown America).

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Cleese says that compared to the production challenges he faced when working on Fawlty Towers, doing American sit-coms felt like "the Rolls Royce way of making comedy."

Books
Arts

Early On, Comedian John Cleese Says, He Had Good Timing But Little Else

12:23pm October 15, 2015

The co-founder of the Monty Python troupe admits he wasn't "naturally gifted" at physical comedy, and learned a lot by imitation. His new memoir, So, Anyway..., covers his boyhood and early career.

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The hundreds of original bronze postal boxes are still there.

Arts

In Argentina, Where Culture Is 'A Right,' A Free New Arts Center Opens

3:05pm October 14, 2015

by Bob Mondello

Argentina's newest tourist attraction is housed in a repurposed century-old Beaux Arts Central Post Office building. The Centro Cultural Kirchner is one of the largest cultural centers in the world.

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In the new Deaf West production of Spring Awakening, the deaf lead actors have doubles in the background who speak and sing for them, and everyone signs.

Arts

'Spring Awakening' Returns To Broadway — In Sign Language

2:22pm October 14, 2015

by Neda Ulaby

The hit musical only closed six years ago, and now it's back, in a well-reviewed revival featuring hearing and deaf actors, who sing and sign during the performance.

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Pictured is the inside of the Pavlovich Ballet School Building, home of the Columbia Classical Ballet, as electrical crews shut off power Monday, in Columbia, S.C.

Deluge Contaminates And Destroys Ballet School

5:42pm October 06, 2015

by Elizabeth Blair

The South Carolina flood has left the Columbia Classical Ballet Company without not just its costumes and scores but its building.