John O'Keefe (playwright)
John O'Keefe (born 1940) is an American playwright, director and solo performer. Notable awards include the 2002 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for ''Times Like These'', and a Bessie Award for ''Shimmer'', which was also made into a motion picture by American Playhouse. Born in Waterloo, Iowa, in 1940, O'Keefe was raised in a series of Catholic orphanages and juvenile homes. He began singing in church choirs at the age of five and pursued his musical interests, subsequently receiving a vocal scholarship at the University of Iowa, where he earned a BA degree in philosophy and an MFA in theater. O'Keefe moved to San Francisco in the early 1970s, beginning an affiliation with the Magic Theatre The Magic Theatre is a theatre company founded in 1967, presently based at the historic Fort Mason Center on San Francisco's northern waterfront. The Magic Theatre is well known and respected for its singular focus on the development and producti ... that continues to this day. O'Ke ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bessie Award
The New York Dance and Performance Awards, also known as the Bessie Awards, are awarded annually for exceptional achievement by independent dance artists presenting their work in New York City. The broad categories of the awards are: choreography, performance, music composition and visual design. The Bessie Awards were established in 1983. History and description The Bessie Awards were established in 1983 by Dance Theater Workshop and named in honor of Bessie Schonberg, an influential mid-20th-century teacher of modern dance and former head of the dance department at Sarah Lawrence College. The awards honor exceptional choreography, performance, music composition and visual design in dance and allied art forms. Nominees and award winners are chosen by the Bessie Selection Committee, which consists of dancers, dance presenters, producers, choreographers, journalists, critics and academics. Since 2010, the awards have been overseen by an independent steering committee in partner ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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American Playhouse
''American Playhouse'' is an American anthology television series periodically broadcast by Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). It premiered on January 12, 1982, with ''The Shady Hill Kidnapping'', written and narrated by John Cheever and directed by Paul Bogart. Its final broadcast, ''In the Wings: Angels in America on Broadway'', a rerun of a behind-the-scenes look at Tony Kushner's award-winning play in two parts, aired on January 1, 1994. The series proved to be a springboard for the careers of numerous performers, including David Marshall Grant, Laura Linney, A Martinez, Conchata Ferrell, Eric Roberts, Lynne Thigpen, John Malkovich, Peter Riegert, Lupe Ontiveros, Ben Stiller, and Megan Mullally. As part of WGBH's development of the Descriptive Video Service (DVS), ''American Playhouse'' was one of the first U.S. television programs to air with audio description for the visually impaired on the Secondary audio program (SAP). After trialing the system during p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Waterloo, Iowa
Waterloo is a city in and the county seat of Black Hawk County, Iowa, Black Hawk County, Iowa, United States. As of the 2020 United States census the population was 67,314, making it the List of cities in Iowa, eighth-most populous city in the state. Waterloo comprises a twin conurbation with neighbor municipality Cedar Falls, Iowa, Cedar Falls. Waterloo is part of the Waterloo – Cedar Falls metropolitan area, Waterloo-Cedar Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area, and is the more populous of the two cities. History Waterloo was originally known as Prairie Rapids Crossing. The town was established near two Meskwaki American tribal seasonal camps alongside the Cedar River (Iowa River), Cedar River. It was first settled in 1845 when George and Mary Melrose Hanna and their children arrived on the east bank of the Red Cedar River (now just called the Cedar River). They were followed by the Virden and Mullan families in 1846. Evidence of these earliest families can still be found in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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University Of Iowa
The University of Iowa (U of I, UIowa, or Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized into 12 colleges offering more than 200 areas of study and 7 professional degrees. On an urban 1,880-acre campus on the banks of the Iowa River, the University of Iowa is Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". In fiscal year 2021, research expenditures at Iowa totaled $818 million. The university was the original developer of the Master of Fine Arts degree, and it operates the Iowa Writers' Workshop, whose alumni include 17 of the university's 46 Pulitzer Prize winners. Iowa is a member of the Association of American Universities and the Universities Research Association. Among public universities in the United States, UI was the first to beco ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of 2024, San Francisco is the List of California cities by population, fourth-most populous city in the U.S. state of California and the List of United States cities by population, 17th-most populous in the United States. San Francisco has a land area of at the upper end of the San Francisco Peninsula and is the County statistics of the United States, fifth-most densely populated U.S. county. Among U.S. cities proper with over 250,000 residents, San Francisco is ranked first by per capita income and sixth by aggregate income as of 2023. San Francisco anchors the Metropolitan statistical area#United States, 13th-most populous metropolitan statistical area in the U.S., with almost 4.6 million residents in 2023. The larger San Francisco Bay Area ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Magic Theatre
The Magic Theatre is a theatre company founded in 1967, presently based at the historic Fort Mason Center on San Francisco's northern waterfront. The Magic Theatre is well known and respected for its singular focus on the development and production of new plays. Sean San José is the Artistic Director. History Founding The Magic Theatre originated in 1967 when John Lion, a student of Jan Kott at the University of California, directed a production of Eugène Ionesco's ''The Lesson'' at the Steppenwolf Bar on San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley. The theatre's name came from a crucial location in Hermann Hesse's 1927 novel '' Steppenwolf'': "Anarchist Evening at the Magic Theatre, For Madmen Only, Price of Admission Your Mind". The Magic's first real success came with plays written by renowned Beat poet Michael McClure, who sustained an eleven-year residency. The theatre reached a turning point when company members wanted to restructure it as a collective. Lion responded by moving th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Shimmer (play)
''Shimmer'' is a 1988 award-winning one-man play by American playwright John O'Keefe. It is a solo performance, portraying multiple characters, that describes life on a harsh juvenile detention farm in the Midwest in the 1950s. Plot The solo actor in ''Shimmer'' tells the story by becoming each character in turn. The play takes place in 1956, in a harsh Midwestern juvenile detention center, where two boys befriend each other. To survive the brutal environment, the two create their own fantasy world, in which the movement of streams and breezes becomes a language that travels between dimensions, a language the boys call "shimmer." The two boys are eventually locked up, and they are ultimately forced to carefully plan and carry out an escape. Background O'Keefe wrote ''Shimmer'' after financial restrictions ended his plans for a five-actor play that had been commissioned, by American Inroads in San Francisco, in 1987. O'Keefe then asked if he could do a solo play, and the proposa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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University Of Iowa Alumni
A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. The first universities in Europe were established by Catholic monks. The University of Bologna (), Italy, which was founded in 1088, is the first university in the sense of: *being a high degree-awarding institute. *using the word (which was coined at its foundation). *having independence from the ecclesiastic schools and issuing secular as well as non-secular degrees (with teaching conducted by both clergy and non-clergy): grammar, rhetoric, logic, theology, canon law and notarial law.Hunt Janin: "The university in medieval life, 1179–1499", McFarland, 2008, , p. 55f.de Ridder-Symoens, Hilde''A History of the University in Europe: Volume 1, Universities in the Midd ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1940 Births
A calendar from 1940 according to the Gregorian calendar, factoring in the dates of Easter and related holidays, cannot be used again until the year 5280. Events Below, events related to World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January *January 4 – WWII: Luftwaffe Chief and Generalfeldmarschall Hermann Göring assumes control of most war industries in Nazi Germany, Germany, in his capacity as Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan. *January 6 – WWII: Winter War – General Semyon Timoshenko takes command of all Soviet forces. *January 7 – WWII: Winter War: Battle of Raate Road – Outnumbered Finnish troops decisively defeat Soviet forces. *January 8 – WWII: **Winter War: Battle of Suomussalmi – Finnish forces destroy the 44th Rifle Division (Soviet Union), Soviet 44th Rifle Division. **Food rationing in the United Kingdom begins; it will remain in force until 1954. *January 9 – WWII: British submarine is sunk in the Heligoland Bight. *January 10 – WWII: Mechele ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |