Quote of the Night-Lillian Hellman

Today, we continue our series of quotes from American writers with a quip from the great playwright and screenwriter Lillian Hellman (1905-1984) who penned the plays "The Children's Hour" (1934), "The Little Foxes" (1939) and "The Autumn Garden" (1951).

Here are some quick facts about Hellman:

-She was born to a Jewish family in New Orleans

_Close friends with fellow writer Dorothy Parker

_Had 30-year romantic relationship with mystery writer Dashiell Hammett*

_Was blacklisted by HUAC in the early '50s for her left-wing views (as was Hammett), but her career survived the witch hunt.

_Was played on film by Jane Fonda in the film "Julia" (1977).

Here is her quote:

"If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves."

*_In previous posts, we had not spelled Dashiell Hammett's first name correctly

Quote of the Day/Week- Lorraine Hansberry

In honor of Black History Month, we continue to quote famous African-Americans and today we share a quip from playwright/activist Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) who died all too young at age 34 from pancreatic cancer.

Hansberry is best-known for her 1959 play "A Raisin in the Sun," about a struggling family residing in the south side of Chicago. Both the original Broadway stage production and the 1961 film version starred Sindey Poitier.

This month, Stained Glass Playhouse in Winston-Salem, NC, is staging "A Raisin in the Sun" (until Feb. 19th).

In the Los Angeles area, the play is also being produced by Center Theatre Group which is performing "A Raisin in the Sun" at the Kirk Douglas theatre in Culver City.

Here is her quote:

"Children see things well sometimes_ and idealists even better."

SIDEBAR: In Durham, NC, Duke University men's basketball player Austin Rivers is assuredly the Big Man on Campus as he hit a three-point shot to help the Blue Devils prevail over their man arch rival, the University of North Carolina Tarheels.

But, half a world away, the nation of Zambia is celebrating as another young athlete, soccer player Emmanuel Mayoka, a substitute, scored the game-winning goal in that country's 1-0 upset win over Ghana in the Africa Cup.

Thus, Zambia, which lost its entire soccer team due to an airplane accident in 1993, will face Ivory Coast for the continental title. Ivory Coast scored its own 1-0 victory over Mali thanks to a goal from Arsenal star Gervinha.

The Africa Cup final will be played in Liberville, Gabon, the same city where that fatal airplane crash took place.

Ending the Year with Willy Shakespeare

This month, we have been quoting the great English playwright William Shakespeare who penned a play called "All's Well that Ends Well," which was written in 1603 and published in 1623. The play will be performed at the Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London on May 23, 2012.

Closer to home, the Playmakers Rep Theatre in Chapel Hill, NC, will be performing both "Henry IV" and "Henry V" on a rotating basis from Jan. 28 until March 4th. That production will be co-directed by Jospeh Haj and Mike Donahue.

Here is our quote, and Happy New Year to all of you, whether you be in Philadelphia, London, Budapest, Athens, Istanbul, Tokyo, Sydney or Buenos Aires:

"My crown is called content, a crown that seldom a king enjoys."

Quote of the Week- Anton Chekhov

Today, we conclude our quotes from famous Russians with a quip from the great novelist/playwright Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) who alas died way too young_*.

Chekhov is known for penning the plays "The Seagull," "Three Sisters" and "The Cherry Orchard." Los Angeles Theatre Works (LATW) is offering an audio version of "Three Sisters" which includes a cast featuring Jon Hamm (tv's "Mad Men") and his real-life wife Jennifer Westfeldt ("Kissing Jessica Stein").

Here is the quote:

"If are afraid of loneliness, don't marry."

*- I caught a dubious error on my part as I apparently didn't spell Anton Chekhov's name right in an earlier entry; I spelled his name Anton Chehov, don't forget the 'k!'

SIDEBAR: Triad Stage in Greensboro, NC, is currently performing a production of another vintage play from a playwright of Chekhov's era (if we are wrong than any theatre history instructors can let me have it) with "A Doll House" by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. The production is currently slated to run until Nov. 6; having seen this production myself, I highly recommend it.

Has It Been Six Years Already?

It was on Sept. 21, 2005, when I posted my first blog entry. It was a simple mini-bio talking about how I grew up in Roanoke,Va., my late father was an immigrant from Turkey, and that I had just seen "The Empire Strikes Back" for the 93rd (whoops! I got my blog mixed with good friend Chris Knight's blog "The Knight Shift;" I've only seen the second Star Wars film twice).

Alas, many of my blogger friends have either discontinued or gone on a long hiatus. But, since I saw that there have been people reading this blog and my other blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time" from places like Iran, Sri Lanka, the Czech Republic and Israel this week alone, it has certainly been a well worth-while experience.

Although, I am fully aware that I could have written a novel as long as Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace" in the amount of time I've spent composing nearly 3,000 entries on two blogs. But, then again, that classic Russian novel has not been checked out of my local library since 2003!

SIDEBAR: Playmakers Rep Theatre in Chapel Hill, NC, is on the verge of their latest stagest production "In the Next Room" by acclaimed playwright Sarah Ruhl, starting tonight. The production will end on Oct. 9. The 2010 Tony Award nominee has an interesting presmise: it is about a new medical device that was designed in the late 1800s to curb 'female hysteria.' That device was a vibrator. And, that will probably get us banned in Iran.

Quote of the Day- Henrik Ibsen

Today's Quote of the Day, not to be confused with our Quote of the Week (yes, they are basically the same thing) comes from the great Norwegian playwright of yesterday Henrik Ibsen; a production of one of his most-famous plays "A Doll's House" will be produced by Triad Stage in Greensboro, NC, in October:

"A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm."

On our other blog, we used this Ibsen quote last month, which seems appropriate given that the state of Georgia may very well execute Troy Davis, a man who may well be not guilty of murder by week's end, especially for those of us who are ardent, vocal opponents of the death penalty:

"A minority may be right, and a majority is always wrong."

Quote of the Day- Tennessee Williams

Since the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, NC, will be presenting the classic 1947 Tennessee Williams play "A Streetcar Named Desire," (starting October 29th) we thought we'd conclude our series of quips from famous playwrights this month with a quote from Williams:

"Death is one moment, and life is so many of them."

Quote of the Week- August Wilson

Today's quote of the week comes from the late playwright August Wilson (1945-2005). I had the opportunity to see an excellent production of his award-winning play "Fences" last year performed by PlayMakers Rep in Chapel Hill, NC.

Later this year, PlayMakers will stage Edward Albee's most famous play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" from Nov. 30-Dece. 18.

Here is the quote from Wilson, and in our view truer words have never been spoken:

"The harder you try to hold onto to them, the easier it is for some gal to get away."

SIDEBAR: Speaking of Edward Albee, I found a copy of a book about the playwright simply called "Edward Albee" by Ronald Hayman (b.1932) who has also written about another great playwright George Bernard Shaw.

The book was left at Tanglewood Mall in Roanoke, Va., as part of the online campaign called Book Crossing (www.bookcrossing.com) which lets readers exchange books with complete strangers.

Hayman's book was written back in 1971, but it made for quite an exceptional read and a solid analysis of Albee's early plays.

SIDEBAR TWO: Due to a number of valid reasons, we are planning to go on hiatus from this blog for a one-week period, but we will resume back here on Aug. 22. Our Roanoke vs. Greensboro series is among the planned entries. In the mean time, I highly suggest that one visit the "The Knight Shift" blog (http://www.blogspot.com/theknightlife) from my friend Chris Knight. He is known for, among other things, as 'the guy who dressed like a Jedi Knight' to a Rockingham County (NC) school board meeting to protest proposed changes in the county schools' dress code policy. As of today, Knight's blog feautres interesting entries on how the Apostle Paul's tomb was discovered recently near Denizli, Turkey, a city I've been to several times, and how a Swedish man was arrested for making nuclear explosives in his own apartment.

Quote of the Day- Henrik Ibsen

Today's quote of the day comes from the great, classic Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. A production of his famous play "A Doll House" will be performed by L.A. Theatre Works from Sept. 22-25 on the UCLA campus with Calista Flockhart (from tv's "Ally Macbeal) and JoBeth Williams in the cast.

Here is his quip:

"A minority may be a right, but a majority is always wrong."

SIDEBAR: Wow, as a former journalist, the rapid decline of the print medium is quite a chilling and depressing one. The Raleigh, NC, alt weekly "Independent Weekly" reported that Durham, NC's daily newspaper "The Herald-Sun" laid off seven newsroom employees, a third of the paper's staff, which also leaves fewer than 20 people in the editorial department.

The paper which was drawn into the Duke University lacrosse scandal in 2006 (acording to Wikipedia) has seen its circulation dwindle from 50,000 to 25,000 (according to "Indy Weekly"). Additionally Wikipedia disclosed that "The Herald-Sun" laid off 81 employees during its first round of lay-offs in 2005. All the staff that was laid off in Durham, NC, as well as reporters from around the country who have lost their jobs due to these seismic changes in the industry have my deepest sympathies.

Quote of the Week: Edward Albee

We normally don't like to promote things we are hoping to see ourselves, but Playmakers Rep Theatre in Chapel Hill, NC, will be presenting the legendary Edward Albee play "Who's Afraid of Virginia" from Nov. 30-Dec. 18, 2011.

Since it is a long time from now, there is always hope that you the blog-reader will long forget about this between now and then, so I can get a good parking space which is always a bit hard to find in Chapel Hill.

Here is Albee's quote (for those at UNC or Duke for that matter, Albee's views do not reflect the staff and management here- which is actually just me), and we are featuring quips from famous playwrights this month:

"American cities are like American universities. They both have dull and half-dead faculties."

Quote of the Week- Lillian Hellman

Today, we feature a quote from the dashing, very liberal late playwright Lillian Hellman (1907-1984) who was romantic partners with the late crime fiction writer Dashiel Hammett (he penned "The Maltese Falcon").

Hellman remains best-known for her early plays "The Children's Hour" (1934) and "The Little Foxes" (1939). She was also a victim of the HUAC witch-hunt.

I saw an excellent production of "The Children's Hour" at Hollins University in Roanoke, Va., a few years ago and an outstanding performance of "The Little Foxes" at Triad Stage in Greensboro, NC.

Here is her quote:

"Cynicism is an unpleasant way to say the truth."

Quote of the Week- Tennesee Williams

Today, we continue our long-running Quotes of the Week series with a quip from the late Southern playwright Tennessee Williams (1911-1983).

One of his more famous plays "The Glass Menagerie" is currently in production at Triad Sage in Greensboro, NC, which in my view continuously performs excellent shows-- even musicals! It will run there until Sept. 26.

From Sept. 23-26, there is a Tennessee Williams Theatre Festival in Provincetown, Mass., where another Williams play "Suddenly Last Summer" will be performed with actress Dana Ivey.

Lastly, the 18th Annual Mississippi Delta Tennessee Williams Festival gets underway in Clarksdale, Mississippi- Williams' hometown from Oct. 15-16.

Here is the quote from the playwright who also wrote "A Streetcar Named Desire" and (my favorite of his plays) "Night of the Iguana" among many others:

"All of us are guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is a work in progress."

Quote of the Week- Athol Fugard

Today, since The World Cup will be played in South Africa later this week, we thought we'd quote some famous person from each of the 32 countries participating on our two blogs presuming we have the time, and presuming we can find a famous person from Paraquay!

We start with a quip from Athol Fugard (b.1932) who is South Africa's leading playwright. He is best known in America for his play "Master Harold and the Boys," in which a young Matthew Broderick played the title part for a Showtime production just after he became famous for his role in the teen adventure film "WarGames"
(1983).

Here is the quote from Fugard:

"We compound our suffering by victimizing each other."

Special Quote of the Week for Harold Pinter

We remember the great playwright Harold Pinter (1930-2008) known for provocative plays like "The Homecoming" and "The Birthday Party" with one of his quotes:

"Apart from the known and the unknown what else is there?"