September 14, 1916 – Eric Bentley "No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come." Distinguished academic, critic, author, playwright, cabaret performer, and translator, Bentley wrote more than 20 books including The Playwright As Thinker (1946), In … [Read more...]
#BornThisDay: Writer, Edna Ferber
1924, Photograph via YouTube August 15, 1885 - Edna Ferber: "A closed mind is a dying mind." I have enjoyed a long crazy obsession for The Algonquin Round Table, a celebrated group of New York City writers, critics, actors and wits. Members of "The Vicious Circle," as … [Read more...]
#BornThisDay: Writer, George Bernard Shaw
1881 via Wikimedia Commons July 27, 1856 - George Bernard Shaw: "If You Want to Tell People the Truth, Make Them Laugh, Otherwise They'll Kill You." Shaw is one of my favorite figures in history. He was a man of Theatre and Film, a vegetarian, a Socialist, and a rabble … [Read more...]
#BornThisDay: Federico García Lorca
Via YouTube June 5, 1898 - Federico García Lorca: ' ''To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.'' 84 years ago he was murdered by a fascist firing squad, but Federico García Lorca remains true to his famous … [Read more...]
#BornThisDay: Playwright, John Van Druten
Drawing by William Auerbach-Levy, Smithsonian June 1, 1901- John Van Druten: I think if I were a woman, I would wear coffee as a perfume. In the early 1930s, John Van Druten was one of the most successful playwrights in London with star studded West End productions of … [Read more...]
#BornThisDay: Playwright, Arthur Wing Pinero
Photograph in public domain May 24, 1885- Arthur Wing Pinero: "I believe the future is only the past again, entered through another gate." He is rather obscure, even for this writer with his degree in Theatre and being an Anglophile savant, and all that. Sir Arthur Wing … [Read more...]
#BornThisDay: Playwright, Lanford Wilson
April 13, 1937, Lanford Wilson: "Nobody's safe around a writer." I spent a certain amount of time and energy in the late 1970s attempting to get a production of the beautiful, soulful play, Fifth Of July, off the ground, one of those artistic endeavors that somehow … [Read more...]
#BornThisDay: Tennessee Williams
Williams with Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey (c) photo by James Kavallines, Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons March 26, 1911– Thomas Lanier Williams III: "What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like … [Read more...]
#BornThisDay: Playwright, Edward Albee
March 12, 1938 – Edward Albee: ''You want to dance with me, Angel Tits?'' The quote is, of course, from Edward Albee's masterpiece Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (1962), a look at the bitter marriage of a middle-aged couple, Martha and George. After a university faculty … [Read more...]
#BornThisDay: Writer, W. Somerset Maugham
January 25, 1874– W. Somerset Maugham: "At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely." Maugham was a spy, prolific writer and physician who took on the taboo subjects of adultery and sexual jealousy and reinvented the spy novel. … [Read more...]
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