Viire Valdma
Viire Valdma (born 29 August 1960) is an Estonian stage, television and film actress. Early life and education Viire Valdma was born in the port town of Paldiski in Harju County. She has two sisters and a half-sister from her mother's second marriage after her parents divorced. The family was forced to move when Paldiski became a heavily fortified closed city after a Soviet Navy nuclear submarine training centre was constructed in 1962. Valdma is a 1982 graduate of the Tallinn State Conservatory (now, the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre) in Tallinn, having studied acting under instructor Aarne Üksküla. Among her graduating classmates were Anu Lamp, Margus Oopkaup, Jaan Rekkor, Laine Mägi, Sulev Teppart, and Andrus Vaarik. Stage career In 1982, shortly after graduation, Viire Valdma began an engagement at the Vanalinnastuudio (Old Town Studio theatre) in Tallinn. She would remain with at the Vanalinnastuudio until 1996. She made her debut at the theatre in role of Alveti ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Paldiski
Paldiski is a town and Baltic Sea port situated on the Pakri Peninsula of northwestern Estonia. Since 2017, it's the administrative centre of Lääne-Harju Parish of Harju County. Previously a village of Estonia-Swedes known by the historical name ''Rågervik'', it was extended into a Russian naval base in the 18th century. The Russian authorities renamed it ''Балтийский Порт'' ("Baltiyskiy Port", i.e., Baltic Port, german: Baltisch-Port) in 1762. In written Estonian, the name was spelled ''Baltiski'' until 1933, when the phonetically spelled version ''Paldiski'' became official. History Swedish Empire Paldiski was founded as a fishing village by Estonian Swedes with the name Rågervik. Russian Empire Peter the Great chose the location in 1715 for a naval base, and construction started in 1716. It was meant to be a sea fortress and in 1790, during the Russo-Swedish War, it was conquered by the Swedes through trickery, when a Swedish warship sailing un ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the " Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. He remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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George Gershwin
George Gershwin (; born Jacob Gershwine; September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned popular, jazz and classical genres. Among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions ''Rhapsody in Blue'' (1924) and ''An American in Paris'' (1928), the songs "Swanee (song), Swanee" (1919) and "Fascinating Rhythm" (1924), the jazz standards "Embraceable You" (1928) and "I Got Rhythm" (1930), and the opera ''Porgy and Bess'' (1935), which included the hit "Summertime (George Gershwin song), Summertime". Gershwin studied piano under Charles Hambitzer and composition with Rubin Goldmark, Henry Cowell, and Joseph Brody (composer), Joseph Brody. He began his career as a song plugger but soon started composing Broadway theater works with his brother Ira Gershwin and with Buddy DeSylva. He moved to Paris, intending to study with Nadia Boulanger, but she refused him, afraid that rigorous classical study would ruin his jazz-influe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Neil Simon
Marvin Neil Simon (July 4, 1927 – August 26, 2018) was an American playwright, screenwriter and author. He wrote more than 30 plays and nearly the same number of movie screenplays, mostly film adaptations of his plays. He has received more combined Oscar and Tony Award nominations than any other writer. Simon grew up in New York City during the Great Depression. His parents' financial difficulties affected their marriage, giving him a mostly unhappy and unstable childhood. He often took refuge in movie theaters, where he enjoyed watching early comedians like Charlie Chaplin. After graduating from high school and serving a few years in the Army Air Force Reserve, he began writing comedy scripts for radio programs and popular early television shows. Among the latter were Sid Caesar's '' Your Show of Shows'' (where in 1950 he worked alongside other young writers including Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart and Selma Diamond), and '' The Phil Silvers S ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Willy Russell
William Russell (born 23 August 1946) is an English dramatist, lyricist and composer. His best known works are '' Educating Rita'', '' Shirley Valentine'', '' Blood Brothers'' and '' Our Day Out''. Early life Russell was born in Whiston, Lancashire (which is now Merseyside). On leaving school, aged 15, he became a ladies' hairdresser, eventually running his own salon, until the age of 20 when he decided to go back to college. This led to him qualifying as a teacher. During these years, Russell also worked as a semi-professional singer, writing and performing his own songs in folk clubs. At college, he began writing drama and, in 1972, took a programme of two one-act plays to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where they were seen by writer John McGrath, who recommended Russell to the Liverpool Everyman, which commissioned the adaptation, ''When The Reds…'', Russell's first professional work for theatre. Career Russell's first play was ''Keep Your Eyes Down'' (1971), written w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Brian Cooke
Brian Cooke (born 1937) is a British comedy writer who, along with co-writer Johnnie Mortimer, wrote scripts for and devised many of the top television sitcoms during the 1970s, including ''Man About the House'', ''George and Mildred'', and '' Robin's Nest''. Cooke also wrote and created the 1980s TV sitcom '' Keep It in the Family'', starring Robert Gillespie and the late-1960s/early-1970s sitcom ''Father, Dear Father'' starring Patrick Cargill. ''Man About the House'', ''George and Mildred'', ''Robin's Nest'', and ''Keep It in the Family'' were remade for American television as ''Three's Company'', ''The Ropers'', ''Three's a Crowd'' and ''Too Close for Comfort''. Early career He was born in Liverpool, Lancashire - now Merseyside. Starting off as a cartoonist during his term of national service, he soon began to sell strips to magazines and newspapers. He met Johnnie Mortimer at a cartoonists convention. They also wrote the screenplays for the film version of the play ''N ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Johnnie Mortimer
John Mortimer (2 July 1931 – 2 September 1992) professionally Johnnie Mortimer, was a British scriptwriter for British TV whose work, along with creative writing partner Brian Cooke, also served as inspiration for American television projects. Life and career He was born in Clare, Suffolk. He started out as a cartoonist, which brought him into contact with his writing partner Brian Cooke. Mortimer later wrote series for radio such as ''The Men from the Ministry'' and ''Round the Horne'', before writing many TV situation comedies including ''Foreign Affairs'', '' Father, Dear Father'', '' Man About the House'', ''Never the Twain'', '' Robin's Nest'' and ''George and Mildred'', often working in partnership with Cooke. Versions of ''Man about the House'', ''George & Mildred ''and ''Robin's Nest'' were later adapted as '' Three's Company'', ''The Ropers'' and '' Three's A Crowd'' respectively. The partnership also wrote two plays, the first a theatrical version of ''Georg ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sławomir Mrożek
Sławomir Mrożek (29 June 1930 – 15 August 2013) was a Polish dramatist, writer and cartoonist. Mrożek joined the Polish United Workers' Party during the reign of Stalinism in the People's Republic of Poland, and made a living as a political journalist. He began writing plays in the late 1950s. His theatrical works belong to the genre of absurdist fiction, intended to shock the audience with non-realistic elements, political and historic references, distortion, and parody. In 1963 he emigrated to Italy and France, then further to Mexico. In 1996 he returned to Poland and settled in Kraków. In 2008 he moved back to France.Krystyna DąbrowskaSławomir Mrożek. Culture.pl, September 2009. He died in Nice at the age of 83. Postwar period Mrożek's family lived in Kraków during World War II. He finished high school in 1949 and in 1950 debuted as a political hack-writer on '' Przekrój''. In 1952 he moved into the government-run Writer's House ( ZLP headquarters with the restri ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Achille Campanile
Achille Campanile (28 September 1899–4 January 1977) was an Italian writer, playwright, journalist and television critic known for his surreal humour and word play Word play or wordplay (also: play-on-words) is a literary technique and a form of wit in which words used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement. Examples of word play include puns, phonet .... Biography Campanile was born in Rome in 1899. He contributed to the newspapers '' La tribuna'', '' L'Idea Nazionale'' and the satirical magazine '' Il Travaso delle idee''. In 1925 he published his first theatre work entitled L’inventore del cavallo which was a single act play. Works * ''Ma che cos'è questo amore'' (1924) * ''Se la luna mi porta fortuna'' (1927) * ''Agosto, moglie mia non-ti conosco'' (1930) * ''In campagna è un'altra cosa'' (1931) * ''Cantilena all'angolo della strada'' (1933) * ''Celestino e la famiglia Gentilissimi'' (1942) * ''Il povero Piero ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Félicien Marceau
Félicien Marceau (16 September 1913 – 7 March 2012) was a French novelist, playwright and essayist originally from Belgium. His real name was Louis Carette. He was close to the Hussards right-wing literary movement, which in turn was close to the monarchist movement . He was born in Kortenberg, Flemish Brabant. Marceau received the Prix Goncourt for his book ''Creezy'' () in 1969. On 27 November 1975 he was elected to the Académie française, succeeding Marcel Achard. In 1974, Goudji created the academician's sword for Félicien Marceau. Bibliography *1948 ', novel () *1949 ', essay () *1951 ', novel () *1951 ', novel (Gallimard ) *1952 ', novel () *1953 ', stories (Calmann-Lévy) *1953 ', one-act play (Fayard) *1953 ', novel () *1954 ', three-act play () () *1955 ', essay () *1955 ', novel () *1957 ', stories () *1957 ', two part play () () *1959 ', two-act play () () *1960 ', one-act play () *1960 ', two-act play () *1962 ', two-act play () *1964 ', two-act play () *19 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jean Genet
Jean Genet (; – ) was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. In his early life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but he later became a writer and playwright. His major works include the novels '' The Thief's Journal'' and '' Our Lady of the Flowers'' and the plays '' The Balcony'', '' The Maids'' and '' The Screens''. Biography Early life Genet's mother was a prostitute who raised him for the first seven months of his life before placing him for adoption. Thereafter Genet was raised in the provincial town of Alligny-en-Morvan, in the Nièvre department of central France. His foster family was headed by a carpenter and, according to Edmund White's biography, was loving and attentive. While he received excellent grades in school, his childhood involved a series of attempts at running away and incidents of petty theft. After the death of his foster mother, Genet was placed with an elderly couple but remained with them less than two years. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Joseph Kesselring
Joseph Otto Kesselring (July 21, 1902 – November 5, 1967) was an American playwright who was best known for writing '' Arsenic and Old Lace'', a hit on Broadway from 1939 to 1944 and in other countries as well. Biography He was born in New York City to Henry and Frances Kesselring. His father's parents were immigrants from Germany. His mother was an English Canadian. Kesselring spent much of his life in and around the theater. In 1922, he began teaching vocal music and directed stage productions at Bethel College, a Mennonite school in North Newton, Kansas. After two years, Kesselring left teaching and returned to the stage, working for two years with an amateur theatrical group in Niagara, New York. He began working as a freelance playwright in 1933, completing 12 original plays, of which four were produced on Broadway: ''There's Wisdom in Women'' (1935), "Cross-Town" (1937), ''Arsenic and Old Lace'' (1939), and ''Four Twelves are 48'' (1951). '' Arsenic and Old Lace ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |