Audio Drama: The L.A. Theatre Works Collection

Audio Drama the L.A. Theatre Works from Alexander Street Press now contains 302 plays delivered in streaming audio. The plays are some of the most significant dramatic works written in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries and are performed by an international roster of actors. Here are a few highlights from the collection.


Alan Ayckbourn (Henceforward, Man of the Moment, Round and Round in the Garden, Table Manners)
Anton Chekhov (Three Sisters)
Susan Glaspell (Trifles)
Henrik Ibsen (A Doll's House)
David Ives (Long Ago and Far Away, New Jerusalem, Time Flies)
David Mamet (Bobby Gould in Hell, Reunion, The Shawl)
Jean-Baptiste Moliere (Tartuffe, The Bungler)
Clifford Odets (Awake and Sing!)
Yasmina Reza (The Unexpected Man)
William Shakespeare (Hamlet, Macbeth)
Sam Shepard (Buried Child)
Richard Sheridan (The Rivals, The School for Scandal)
Neil Simon (California Suite)

Notable actors include Anne Heche (Henceforward), Jane Leeves (Round and Round in the Garden), Lisa Bonet (Say Zebra), Alfred Molina (Copenhagen), Ed Asner (New Jerusalem), Ed Begley, Jr. (Time Flies), Hank Azaria (It's Not a Fair World), Steve Carell (Sin), Marilu Henner (Bobby Gould in Hell), Richard Kind (Awake and Sing!), Kathleen Turner (The Graduate), Walter Matthau (The Hole in the Top of the World) among others.

Seven Days a Week!

MoMA Plans to be Open.

 See related article from the New York Times.

Arts Administration Resources

Here are a few resources for researching topics in arts administration.

• Gale Virtual Reference Library -- includes encyclopedias on small business and information on managing non-profits.

• Foundation Directory  -- search grants for theater

• Factiva  -- full-text business information including non-profits 

• ABI  -- citations and full-text for business journals -- part of the ProQuest family of databases

• International Index to Performing Arts -- citations and full-text for popular and scholarly journal articles on the performing arts -- also part of the ProQuest family of databases

• EBSCO -- includes Art Index, International Bibliography of Theatre and Dance, Humanities Full Text, Film and Television Literature Index -- you can search across all or selected EBSCO databases

• ProQuest  -- includes extensive current and historical newspapers, ABI, International Index to the Performing Arts, Vogue, and more -- you can search across all or selected ProQuest databases

Sample keywords 

• arts administration
• arts management 
• trends performing art* salaries
• arts funding 
• public support arts 
• government support arts 
• foundation support arts 

It's a new academic year!

Welcome all new Columbia students and best wishes for a wonderful academic year!

Mata Hari (1931)

Based on the true story of Mata Hari, assumed name of Margaretha Geertruida MacLeod, an exotic dancer, courtesan and accused spy, the film starred Greta Garbo as Mata Hari and co-starred Lionel Barrymore and Ramon Novarro. Garbo's performance was praised as a brilliant portrayal of a seductive creature possessing hypnotic charms and intelligence. MGM picked up the project after Paramount abandoned its plans to tell the story of Mata Hari. The Hays Office raised concerns about the dance sequence and the "bedroom situations."

MGM's chief costume designer, Adrian, designed the costumes. Adrian began designing for films during the silent era and worked successfully through 1941. His designs set new fashion trends influencing the ready-to-wear industry. He worked with Garbo on many films including Anna Christie (1930), Grand Hotel (1932), The Painted Veil (1934),  Queen Christina (1934), Camille (1937), and Ninotchka (1939). After he retired from the movie industry, he opened a couture and ready-to-wear business in Beverly Hills. 

Image of Greta Garbo in Mata Hari courtesy of The Kobal Collection.

Kobal Collection

The Kobal Collection is a preeminent collection of images related to the motion picture industry, primarily U.S. with some international content. Established by John Kobal, the collection numbers more than one million photos from early cinema to modern day including publicity stills, portraits, celebrity photos, and costume shots. Take note the next time you read a book about Hollywood or the film industry -- it is likely that Kobal images have been included.

I am grateful to Lauretta Dives from The Picture Desk -- Kobal Collection -- for granting me 50 images to use in my blog postings. With this collection, I am launching a new series of postings with focus on costume designers, the year 1939 in film, films from the 1970s and Billy Wilder! All beautifully illustrated with images from the Kobal Collection.

One for the casebooks!

Netflix -- what happened?

See story in The New York Times.

Arts Endowment Trims Support for PBS Shows

The New York Times reported this morning that the "National Endowment for the Arts made sweeping cuts in its support of established PBS shows under the 2012 Arts in Media grants which were announced Wednesday morning. In its place, the endowment awarded large grants to an array of gaming and Web-based projects."

The total amount awarded was down $4 million from last year but resulted in an increase in the number of grants awarded -- 78 up from 64 in 2011.


Big hit to "The PBS NewsHour -- and WNET received a grant towards a new series "The Electric Animation Festival."

Emphasis this year- - funding for public media and not just broadcast.

Ordinary People (1980)

Ordinary People is an intimate portrait of a family in crisis. The film, Robert Redford's directorial debut, cuts to the core of the family dynamics within an affluent WASP family in crisis. The outstanding cast includes Mary Tyler Moore, Donald Sutherland, Timothy Hutton, Judd Hirsch and Elizabeth McGovern. Based on the best-selling novel by Judith Guest, the story focuses on Conrad Jarrett (Hutton), a teenager struggling with his remorse for not having saved his older brother from drowning. The parents, portrayed by Moore and Sutherland, behave as if everything is normal. Beneath the surface, the tension within the household is near a breaking point. Judd Hirsch is excellent as the psychiatrist helping Conrad after his attempted suicide. Mary Tyler Moore provides a gripping portrayal of an emotionally challenged woman. Donald Sutherland provides a tender performance of a man trying to understand and help his ailing family. Timothy Hutton delivers a sensitive portrayal of the troubled teenager.

Alvin Sargent adapted the novel for the screen. The film won the Oscar for Best Picture.

Check out this new book!

EARLY CINEMA TODAY: THE ART OF PROGRAMMING AND LIVE PERFORMANCE ed. by Martin Loiperdinger. The essays focus on innovative presentations of old films -- a must read for anyone interested in early cinema.

From the publisher's website:

"This volume presents a number of innovative projects; Mariann Lewinsky’s A Hundred Years Ago programmes for scholars and archivists at the Bologne Festival, Eric de Kuyper’s integrating films from the 1910s into elaborated performance events, both curators’ jointly programmed From the Deep series at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Madeleine Bernstorff’s and Mariann Lewinsky’s weekend in Berlin with films related to the suffragettes’ movement, Vanessa Toulmin’s numerous shows of early local films for today’s local people, and last but not least the Crazy Cinématographe, the Luxemburg fairground cinematograph show curated by Nicole Dahlen and Claude Bertemes, which includes front-shows and film narrators, the essentials of fairground performance. All these remarkable appropriations of early cinema offer a variety of new perspectives to experience and understand what cinema has been in the beginning."