Michael W. Halberstam
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Michael W. Halberstam
Michael Halberstam is an American stage actor and director. He co-founded the Writers Theatre in Glencoe, Illinois, and served as its artistic director until 2021. He resigned after years of reported harassment and abuse from artists working at the theater. Early career Halberstam attended University of Illinois, where he had been granted admission to the actor training program. Shortly after graduation in 1986 he moved to Chicago where he was immediately drawn to classics, working almost exclusively on the works of William Shakespeare. He went on to join The Stratford Festival's Young Company in Ontario and spent two years performing in a number of plays including ''Timon of Athens'', ''The Knight of the Burning Pestle'' (title role), ''Much Ado About Nothing'', ''As You Like It'', and ''Macbeth''., The Brief Chronicle, Issue 26, September 2009. Writers Theatre In 1992, Halberstam (Artistic Director) and Marilyn Campbell (Artistic Associate) founded Writers Theatre. Writers ...
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Writers Theatre
Writers Theatre is a non-profit theatre company founded in 1992 and located in Glencoe, Illinois. Michael W. Halberstam, the founder of the company, was an artistic director from its inception until 2021; he resigned after decades of complaints about his inappropriate workplace comments and conduct. Braden Abraham is the current artistic director. Kathryn M. Lipuma has been an executive director since 2007. History Writers Theatre opened its first venue in the anteroom of a newly opened bookstore in 1992 in Glencoe, IL. A second 108-seat performance space was opened in 2003 in The Women Library Club of Glencoe on Tudor Court. The company has produced more than 100 productions, including more than 20 world premieres. In 2007, Writers Theatre debuted nationally with a New York premiere of ''Crime and Punishment'', adapted by Marilyn Campbell and Curt Columbus. In 2011, Lincoln Center Theater produced another work that began at Writers Theatre: ''A Minister's Wife'', a musical a ...
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Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and WGN-TV, WGN television received their call letters. It is the most-read daily newspaper in the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region, and the List of newspapers in the United States, sixth-largest newspaper by print circulation in the United States. In the 1850s, under Joseph Medill, the ''Chicago Tribune'' became closely associated with the Illinois politician Abraham Lincoln, and the then new Republican Party (United States), Republican Party's progressive wing. In the 20th century, under Medill's grandson 'Colonel' Robert R. McCormick, its reputation was that of a crusading newspaper with an outlook that promoted Conservatism in the United States, American conservatism and opposed the New Deal. Its reporting and commenta ...
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Arcadia (play)
''Arcadia'' is a 1993 stage play written by English playwright Tom Stoppard, which explores the relationship between past and present, order and disorder, certainty and uncertainty. It has been praised by many critics as the finest play from "one of the most significant contemporary playwrights" in the English language. In 2006, the Royal Institution of Great Britain named it one of the best science-related works ever written. Synopsis In 1809, Thomasina Coverly, the daughter of the house, is a precocious teenager with ideas about mathematics, nature, and physics well ahead of her time. She studies with her tutor Septimus Hodge, a friend of Lord Byron (an unseen guest in the house). In the present, writer Hannah Jarvis and literature professor Bernard Nightingale converge on the house: she is investigating a hermit who once lived on the grounds; he is researching a mysterious chapter in the life of Byron. As their studies unfold – with the help of Valentine Coverly, a post- ...
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Sweet Charity
''Sweet Charity'' is a musical with music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Dorothy Fields, and book by Neil Simon, based on the screenplay for the 1957 Italian film '' Nights of Cabiria''. It was directed and choreographed for Broadway by Bob Fosse starring his wife and muse Gwen Verdon as a dancer-for-hire at a Times Square dance hall, alongside John McMartin. The musical premiered on Broadway in 1966, where it was nominated for nine Tony Awards, winning the Tony Award for Best Choreography. The production also ran in the West End and has run several revivals and international productions. It was adapted for the screen in 1969, directed and choreographed by Fosse in his feature-film directorial debut. Shirley MacLaine starred as the title character, and McMartin reprised his Broadway role as Oscar Lindquist. Plot Act I The young woman Charity Hope Valentine is a taxi dancer at a dance hall called the Fandango Ballroom in New York City. With a shoulder bag and a heart tattooed ...
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Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (theatre), play depicts Prince Hamlet and his attempts to exact revenge against his uncle, King Claudius, Claudius, who has murdered Ghost (Hamlet), Hamlet's father in order to seize his throne and marry Gertrude (Hamlet), Hamlet's mother. ''Hamlet'' is considered among the "most powerful and influential tragedies in the English language", with a story capable of "seemingly endless retelling and adaptation by others." It is widely considered one of the greatest plays of all time. Three different early versions of the play are extant: the Hamlet Q1, First Quarto (Q1, 1603); the Second Quarto (Q2, 1604); and the First Folio (F1, 1623). Each version includes lines and passages missing from the others. Many works have been pointed to as possible s ...
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The Real Thing (play)
''The Real Thing'' is a play by Tom Stoppard that was first performed in 1982. The play focuses on the relationship between Henry and Annie, an actress and member of a group fighting to free Brodie, a Scottish soldier imprisoned for burning a memorial wreath during a protest. ''The Real Thing'' examines the nature of honesty and uses various constructs, including a play within a play, to explore the theme of reality versus appearance. It has been described as one of Stoppard's "most popular, enduring and autobiographical plays." Characters Max: "40-ish" male actor who begins the play married to Annie. Acts in Henry's new play, ''House of Cards''. Charlotte: "35-ish" actress who begins the play married to Henry. Appears opposite Max in ''House of Cards''. Henry: "40-ish" playwright who, at the beginning of the play, is married to Charlotte and conducting an affair with Annie. Both believe in love and yet approach it with cynicism. Annie: "30-ish" actress who begins the play ...
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She Loves Me
''She Loves Me'' is a musical with a book by Joe Masteroff, music by Jerry Bock, and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick. The musical is the third adaptation of the 1937 play '' Parfumerie'' by Hungarian playwright Miklós László, following the 1940 film '' The Shop Around the Corner'' and the 1949 musical version ''In the Good Old Summertime.'' (It surfaced again as 1998's '' You've Got Mail''). The plot revolves around Budapest shop employees Georg and Amalia, who, despite being consistently at odds with each other at work, are unaware that each is the other's secret pen pal met through lonely-hearts ads. The musical premiered on Broadway in 1963 and ran for 301 performances, was produced in the West End in 1964, and received award-winning revivals on each side of the Atlantic in the 1990s (as well as numerous regional productions). Although the original Broadway run was not a financial success, ''She Loves Me'' slowly became a cult classic, and the massively successful 2016 Broadw ...
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Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead
''Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead'' is an absurdist, existential tragicomedy by Tom Stoppard, first staged at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1966. The play expands upon the exploits of two minor characters from Shakespeare's ''Hamlet'', the courtiers Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and the main setting is Denmark. The action of Stoppard's play takes place mainly "in the wings" of Shakespeare's ''Hamlet'', with brief appearances of major characters from ''Hamlet'' who enact fragments of the original's scenes. Between these episodes, the two protagonists voice their confusion at the progress of events occurring onstage without them in ''Hamlet'', of which they have no direct knowledge. Comparisons have also been drawn with Samuel Beckett's ''Waiting for Godot'', for the presence of two central characters who almost appear to be two halves of a single character. Many plot features are similar as well: the characters pass time by playing Questions, impersonating other cha ...
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Othello
''The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice'', often shortened to ''Othello'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare around 1603. Set in Venice and Cyprus, the play depicts the Moorish military commander Othello as he is manipulated by his ensign, Iago, into suspecting his wife Desdemona of infidelity. ''Othello'' is widely considered one of Shakespeare's greatest works and is usually classified among his major tragedies alongside ''Macbeth'', ''King Lear'', and ''Hamlet''. Unpublished in the author's life, the play survives in one quarto edition from 1622 and in the First Folio. ''Othello'' has been one of Shakespeare's most popular plays, both among playgoers and literary critics, since its first performance, spawning numerous stage, screen, and operatic adaptations. Among actors, the roles of Othello, Iago, Desdemona, and Emilia (Iago's wife) are regarded as highly demanding and desirable. Critical attention has focused on the nature of the play's tragedy, ...
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The Duchess Of Malfi
''The Duchess of Malfi'' (originally published as ''The Tragedy of the Dutchesse of Malfy'') is a Jacobean revenge tragedy written by English dramatist John Webster in 1612–1613. It was first performed privately at the Blackfriars Theatre, then later to a larger audience at The Globe, in 1613–1614. Published in 1623, the play is loosely based on events that occurred between 1508 and 1513 surrounding Giovanna d'Aragona, Duchess of Amalfi (d. 1511), whose father, Enrico d'Aragona, Marquis of Gerace, was an illegitimate son of Ferdinand I of Naples. As in the play, she secretly married Antonio Beccadelli di Bologna after the death of her first husband Alfonso I Piccolomini, Duke of Amalfi. The play begins as a love story, when the Duchess marries beneath her class, and ends as a nightmarish tragedy as her two brothers undertake their revenge, destroying themselves in the process. Jacobean drama continued the trend of stage violence and horror set by Elizabethan t ...
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The Seagull
''The Seagull'' () is a play by Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov, written in 1895 in literature, 1895 and first produced in 1896 in literature#Drama, 1896. ''The Seagull'' is generally considered to be the first of his four major plays. It dramatizes the romantic and artistic conflicts between four characters: the famous middlebrow story writer Boris Trigorin, the ingenue Nina, the fading actress Irina Arkadina, and her son the Russian symbolism, symbolist playwright Konstantin Treplev. Like Chekhov's other full-length plays, ''The Seagull'' relies upon an ensemble cast of diverse, fully-developed characters. In contrast to the melodrama of mainstream Nineteenth-century theatre, 19th-century theatre, lurid actions (such as Konstantin's suicide attempts) are not shown onstage. Characters tend to speak in subtext rather than directly. The character Trigorin is considered one of Chekhov's greatest male roles. The opening night of the first production was a famous failure. Vera Komiss ...
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The Doctor's Dilemma (play)
''The Doctor's Dilemma'' is a play by George Bernard Shaw first staged in 1906. It was published in 1909. It is a problem play about the moral dilemmas created by limited medical resources, and the conflicts between the demands of private medicine as a business and a vocation. Characters Roles and original cast: *Mr. Danby – Lewis Casson *Sir Patrick Cullen – William Farren, Junr. *Louis Dubedat – Harley Granville-Barker *Emmy – Claire Greet *Dr. Blenkinsop – Edmund Gurney *Minnie Tinwell – Mary Hamilton *Cutler Walpole – James Hearn *Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington – Eric Lewis *The Newspaper Man – Trevor Lowe *A Waiter – Percy Marmont *Jennifer Dubedat – Lillah McCarthy *Redpenny – Norman Page *Leo Schutzmacher – Michael Sherbrooke *Sir Colenso Ridgeon – Ben Webster THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA ROYAL COURT THEATRE PROGRAMME "Commencing Monday December 31st, 1906 for Six Weeks Only" The Newspaper Man is played by Mr Jules Shaw, according to this pr ...
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