The American Place Theatre
Encyclopedia
The American Place Theatre was founded in 1963 by Wynn Handman
, Sidney Lanier, and Michael Tolan
at St. Clement's Church, far west on 46th Street in New York City
and was incorporated as a not-for-profit theatre in that year. Tennessee Williams
and Myrna Loy
were two of the original Board members. The first full production was Robert Lowell
's theatre trilogy masterpiece, The Old Glory, in November 1964.
In addition to poet Robert Lowell
, The American Place Theatre has produced and developed the first plays of outstanding writers from other literary forms including Donald Barthelme
, Robert Coover
, Paul Goodman
, H. L. Mencken
, Joyce Carol Oates
, S. J. Perelman
, Sylvia Plath
, Anne Sexton
, May Swenson
, and Robert Penn Warren
.
Significant playwrights have been nurtured and, in many cases, initially produced at The American Place, such as:
Also, major attention has been brought to unconventional, contemporary actor/writers such as Eric Bogosian
, Bill Irwin
, John Leguizamo
, Aasif Mandvi
, and Dael Orlandersmith
.
, Ed Bullins
, Kia Corthron
, James de Jongh, Joseph Edward, Lonne Elder III
, Phillip Hayes Dean, Elaine Jackson, Alonzo D. Lamont Jr., Ron Milner
, Matt Robinson
, Charlie L. Russell
, and Vincent Smith.
Its American Humorists’ Series has transferred from the page to live performance the work of outstanding humorous writers, among them George Ade
, Robert Benchley
, Roy Blount Jr., A. Whitney Brown
, Jules Feiffer
, Bruce Jay Friedman
, Cynthia Heimel
, Dorothy Parker
, Roger Rosenblatt
, Damon Runyon
, Jean Shepherd
, James Thurber
, and Calvin Trillin
.
In 1978, The Women’s Project, directed by Julia Miles, was designed to encourage, develop, and produce women playwrights and directors. After nine years of producing many groundbreaking works at The American Place Theatre, the project has grown into a separate entity.
Actors for whom The American Place Theatre has been a launching pad include Mary Alice
, Ellen Barkin
, Roscoe Lee Browne
, Kathleen Chalfant
, Michael Douglas
, Faye Dunaway
, Sandy Duncan
, Morgan Freeman
, Richard Gere
, Joel Grey
, Dustin Hoffman
, Frank Langella
, Mary MacDonnell, Zakes Mokae
, Howard Rollins
, John Spencer
, Ralph Waite
, Sam Waterston
, and Sigourney Weaver
.
- AUDELCO Awards for excellence in Black Theatre: “Williams & Walker” by Vincent Smith, “Ground People” by Leslie Lee, “Zora Neale Hurston” by Laurence Holder, and “Fly” by Joseph Edward
- The New England Theatre Conference Special Award for pioneering in the aiding and encouragement of the craft of playwriting for writers in other literary fields
- The Margo Jones Award – 1966
Literature to Life
A new chapter for the American Place Theatre began with its first Literature to Life
performance in 1994 of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye
. Literature to Life, The American Place Theatre's performance-based literacy program, presents professionally staged verbatim adaptations of significant American literary works. This educational program gives students a new form of access to literature by bringing to life the world of books with performances that create an atmosphere of discovery and spark the imagination.
Literature to Life has received multiple grants from the Carnegie Corporation, an organization that has supported more than 550 New York City arts and social service institutions since its inception in 2002, and which was made possible through a donation by New York City mayor
Michael Bloomberg
.
Books that have been adapted for Literature to Life's theatrical performances include Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451
, Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried
, Richard Wright's Black Boy
, Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
, Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees
, Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner
, and Lois Lowry's The Giver
.
Project 451, the funding initiative of Literature to Life, was starting during the 2008-2009 season to ensure that reading, writing, and the arts remain a primary component of the education of young American citizens. Spokespeople for Project 451 include Meryl Streep
, Alec Baldwin
, Sam Waterston
, and Jessica Lange
.
The titles for the 2010-2011 season are Junot Diaz
' The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
, adapted and directed by Elise Thoron and Piri Thomas
' Down These Mean Streets
adapted and directed by Wynn Handman
. Literature to Life's new adaptation for the 2009-2010 season was Greg Mortenson
's best-selling book, Three Cups of Tea
. Also, adapted and directed by Wynn Handman, the show features sixty minutes of performance from this globally important best seller. From the first heart-stopping opening moments stranded on a mountaintop, the actor brings the audience through the very intimate journey of one man’s fight against all odds to make a difference in the world.
Every year, The American Place Theatre hosts its annual Gala, the Literature to Life Awards. The 2011 Literature to Life Awards took place on May 23, 2011; began with an adapted theatrical performances of Down These Mean Streets starring actor Jamil Mena and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao starring Elvis Nolasco and honored Piri Thomas
and Junot Diaz
. The evening also included a performance written and performed by students from Newcomers High School, a high school for students who have recently immigrated to the US, in Long Island City.
Wynn Handman
Wynn Handman, is the Artistic Director of The American Place Theatre, which he co-founded with Sidney Lanier and Michael Tolan in 1963. His role in the theatre has been to seek out, encourage, train, and present new and exciting writing and acting talent and to develop and produce new plays by...
, Sidney Lanier, and Michael Tolan
Michael Tolan
-Life and career:Tolan was born Seymour Tuchow in Detroit, Michigan. He graduated from Wayne State University in Detroit and studied under Stella Adler and at Stanford University. He appeared primarily in stage roles in his early career, with only minor parts in films of the early 1950s...
at St. Clement's Church, far west on 46th Street in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and was incorporated as a not-for-profit theatre in that year. Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
and Myrna Loy
Myrna Loy
Myrna Loy was an American actress. Trained as a dancer, she devoted herself fully to an acting career following a few minor roles in silent films. Originally typecast in exotic roles, often as a vamp or a woman of Asian descent, her career prospects improved following her portrayal of Nora Charles...
were two of the original Board members. The first full production was Robert Lowell
Robert Lowell
Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet, considered the founder of the confessional poetry movement. He was appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress where he served from 1947 until 1948...
's theatre trilogy masterpiece, The Old Glory, in November 1964.
In addition to poet Robert Lowell
Robert Lowell
Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet, considered the founder of the confessional poetry movement. He was appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress where he served from 1947 until 1948...
, The American Place Theatre has produced and developed the first plays of outstanding writers from other literary forms including Donald Barthelme
Donald Barthelme
Donald Barthelme was an American author known for his playful, postmodernist style of short fiction. Barthelme also worked as a newspaper reporter for the Houston Post, managing editor of Location magazine, director of the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston , co-founder of Fiction Donald...
, Robert Coover
Robert Coover
Robert Lowell Coover is an American author and professor in the Literary Arts program at Brown University. He is generally considered a writer of fabulation and metafiction.-Life and works:...
, Paul Goodman
Paul Goodman (writer)
Paul Goodman was an American sociologist, poet, writer, anarchist, and public intellectual. Goodman is now mainly remembered as the author of Growing Up Absurd and an activist on the pacifist Left in the 1960s and an inspiration to that era's student movement...
, H. L. Mencken
H. L. Mencken
Henry Louis "H. L." Mencken was an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, acerbic critic of American life and culture, and a scholar of American English. Known as the "Sage of Baltimore", he is regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prose stylists of the...
, Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates is an American author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over fifty novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction...
, S. J. Perelman
S. J. Perelman
Sidney Joseph Perelman, almost always known as S. J. Perelman , was an American humorist, author, and screenwriter. He is best known for his humorous short pieces written over many years for The New Yorker...
, Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. Born in Massachusetts, she studied at Smith College and Newnham College, Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a professional poet and writer...
, Anne Sexton
Anne Sexton
Anne Sexton was an American poet, known for her highly personal, confessional verse. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967...
, May Swenson
May Swenson
Anna Thilda May "May" Swenson was an American poet and playwright...
, and Robert Penn Warren
Robert Penn Warren
Robert Penn Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the influential literary journal The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935...
.
Significant playwrights have been nurtured and, in many cases, initially produced at The American Place, such as:
- Sam ShepardSam ShepardSam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...
(8 plays including one co-authored with Joseph ChaikinJoseph ChaikinJoseph Chaikin was an American theatre director, playwright, and pedagogue.-Early years:The youngest of five children, Chaikin was born to a poor Jewish family living in the Borough Park residential area of Brooklyn. At the age of six, he was struck with rheumatic fever, and he continued to...
) - Ronald RibmanRonald RibmanRonald Burt Ribman is an American author, poet and playwright.-Biography:Ribman was born in Sydenham Hospital in New York City to Samuel M. Ribman, a lawyer, and Rosa Ribman. He attended public school in Brooklyn, and graduated P.S. 188 in 1944. Ribman attended Mark Twain Jr. High School,...
(6) - Steve TesichSteve TesichStojan Steve Tesich was a Serbian-American screenwriter, playwright and novelist. He won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1979 for the movie Breaking Away.-Career:...
(6) - Maria Irene FornesMaría Irene FornésMaría Irene Fornés is a Cuban-American avant garde playwright and director who is associated with the establishment of the Off-off-Broadway movement in the 1960s. Fornes themes focused on poverty and feminism. In 1965, she won her first Obie Award for Promenade and her second for The Successful...
(4 including one produced as part of The Women’s Project) - Ed BullinsEd BullinsEd Bullins is an African American playwright. He was also the Minister of Culture for the Black Panthers. In addition, he has won numerous awards, including the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and several Obies. He is one of the best known playwrights to come from the Black Arts Movement...
(5) - Philip Hayes Dean (3)
- William HauptmanWilliam HauptmanWilliam Hauptman, born November 26, 1942, in Wichita Falls, Texas, is a writer, best known for the plays, musicals, and short stories he has written.- Work :*Big River*Comanche Cafe*Domino Courts*The Durango Flash*Gillette*Heat...
(3) - Jonathan ReynoldsJonathan ReynoldsJonathan Neil Reynolds is a British Labour Co-operative politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Stalybridge and Hyde since 2010....
(4) - William AlfredWilliam AlfredWilliam Alfred was a playwright and Professor of English literature at Harvard University.Born in Brooklyn, New York, Alfred served in the Army tank corps in World War II, received a B.A. from Brooklyn College in 1948, and received an M.A. in English from Harvard in 1949. He earned his Ph.D...
- Emily MannEmily Mann (director)Emily Mann, born April 12, 1952, is the multi-award–winning Artistic Director and Resident Playwright of McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey, where she has overseen over 85 productions....
- Richard NelsonRichard NelsonRichard Nelson may refer to:* Richard Nelson , anthropologist and writer* Richard Nelson , Episcopal bishop in America...
- Frank ChinFrank ChinFrank Chin is an American author and playwright.- Life and career :Frank Chin was born in Berkeley, California, but was raised to the age of six by a retired Vaudeville couple in Placerville, California. At six his mother brought him back to the San Francisco Bay Area to live in Oakland Chinatown...
, the first Asian American to have plays produced by a mainstream New York company (The Chickencoop ChinamanThe Chickencoop ChinamanThe Chickencoop Chinaman is a 1972 play by Frank Chin. It was the first play by an Asian American to have a major New York production.-Story:...
and The Year of the DragonThe Year of the Dragon (play)The Year of the Dragon is the best-known play by Frank Chin, the first Asian American playwright to be produced on a mainstream New York stage...
)
Also, major attention has been brought to unconventional, contemporary actor/writers such as Eric Bogosian
Eric Bogosian
Eric Bogosian is an American actor, playwright, monologist, and novelist of Armenian descent.-Personal life:Bogosian, an Armenian-American, was born in Woburn, Massachusetts, the son of Edwina, a hairdresser and instructor, and Henry Bogosian, an accountant. After graduating from Oberlin College,...
, Bill Irwin
Bill Irwin
William Mills "Bill" Irwin is an American actor and clown noted for his contribution to the renaissance of American circus during the 1970s. He is known for his vaudeville-style stage acts, but has made a number of appearances on film and television and won a Tony Award for a dramatic role on...
, John Leguizamo
John Leguizamo
Jonathan Alberto "John" Leguizamo is an Colombian-American actor, producer, voice artist, and comedian.-Early life:...
, Aasif Mandvi
Aasif Mandvi
Aasif Hakim Mandviwala , known professionally as Aasif Mandvi , is an American actor and comedian. He began appearing as an occasional contributing correspondent on The Daily Show on August 9, 2006. On March 12, 2007, he was promoted to a regular correspondent.-Early life and stage career:Mandvi...
, and Dael Orlandersmith
Dael Orlandersmith
Dael Orlandersmith is an actress, poet and playwright who is best known for her Obie Award winning Beauty's Daughter and the 2002 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Drama, Yellowman....
.
History
The American Place Theatre played an important role in the emerging African-American theatre beginning in the early 1960s by producing the first productions of plays by Michael BradfordMichael Bradford
Michael Bradford was born and raised on Detroit's East Side, an area that was once a working-class neighborhood, but quickly deteriorated into decay after the city's tumultuous riots in 1967....
, Ed Bullins
Ed Bullins
Ed Bullins is an African American playwright. He was also the Minister of Culture for the Black Panthers. In addition, he has won numerous awards, including the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and several Obies. He is one of the best known playwrights to come from the Black Arts Movement...
, Kia Corthron
Kia Corthron
Kia Corthron is an American playwright, activist, and television writer. She wrote an episode of The Wire entitled, "Know Your Place", as well as an episode of The Jury called, "Lamentation on the Reservation".-Biography:...
, James de Jongh, Joseph Edward, Lonne Elder III
Lonne Elder III
Lonne Elder III was an American actor, playwright and screenwriter. In 1973, he along with Suzanne de Passe became the first African Americans to be nominated for the Academy Award for writing...
, Phillip Hayes Dean, Elaine Jackson, Alonzo D. Lamont Jr., Ron Milner
Ron Milner
Ronald Milner was an African-American playwright. His play, Checkmates, starring Paul Winfield and Denzel Washington ran on Broadway in 1988.-Early life:...
, Matt Robinson
Matt Robinson
Matthew Thomas "Matt" Robinson, Jr. was an American actor. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on New Year's Day in 1937, he was the first actor to portray the character of Gordon Robinson on the long-running PBS children's TV program Sesame Street...
, Charlie L. Russell
Charlie L. Russell
Charlie Louis Russell, Jr. is a writer, best known for his play, Five on the Black Hand Side, which was later made into an acclaimed motion picture.-Biography:...
, and Vincent Smith.
Its American Humorists’ Series has transferred from the page to live performance the work of outstanding humorous writers, among them George Ade
George Ade
George Ade was an American writer, newspaper columnist, and playwright.-Biography:Ade was born in Kentland, Indiana, one of seven children raised by John and Adaline Ade. While attending Purdue University, he became a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity...
, Robert Benchley
Robert Benchley
Robert Charles Benchley was an American humorist best known for his work as a newspaper columnist and film actor...
, Roy Blount Jr., A. Whitney Brown
A. Whitney Brown
Alan Whitney Brown is an Emmy Award-winning writer and comedian probably best known for his recurring appearances on Saturday Night Live in the 1980s opposite Dennis Miller in a biting satirical...
, Jules Feiffer
Jules Feiffer
Jules Ralph Feiffer is an American syndicated cartoonist, most notable for his long-run comic strip titled Feiffer. He has created more than 35 books, plays and screenplays...
, Bruce Jay Friedman
Bruce Jay Friedman
Bruce Jay Friedman is an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and actor.Raised in the Bronx by Irving and Mollie Friedman, Bruce Jay Friedman graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School. He then attended the University of Missouri as a journalism major, then served as a First Lieutenant in...
, Cynthia Heimel
Cynthia Heimel
Cynthia Heimel is a playwright, television writer, and the author of several satirical books which are aimed primarily at a female readership. To those who have heard of her but have not read her books, her works are probably best known for their unusual titles.Heimel's first book Sex Tips for...
, Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker was an American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th century urban foibles....
, Roger Rosenblatt
Roger Rosenblatt
Roger Rosenblatt is an American journalist, author, playwright and teacher. He was a long-time columnist for Time magazine.-Career:...
, Damon Runyon
Damon Runyon
Alfred Damon Runyon was an American newspaperman and writer.He was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition era. To New Yorkers of his generation, a "Damon Runyon character" evoked a distinctive social type from the...
, Jean Shepherd
Jean Shepherd
Jean Parker Shepherd was an American raconteur, radio and TV personality, writer and actor who was often referred to by the nickname Shep....
, James Thurber
James Thurber
James Grover Thurber was an American author, cartoonist and celebrated wit. Thurber was best known for his cartoons and short stories published in The New Yorker magazine.-Life:...
, and Calvin Trillin
Calvin Trillin
Calvin Marshall Trillin is an American journalist, humorist, food writer, poet, memoirist and novelist.-Biography:Trillin attended public schools in Kansas City and went on to Yale University, where he served as chairman of the Yale Daily News and was a member of Scroll and Key before graduating...
.
In 1978, The Women’s Project, directed by Julia Miles, was designed to encourage, develop, and produce women playwrights and directors. After nine years of producing many groundbreaking works at The American Place Theatre, the project has grown into a separate entity.
Actors for whom The American Place Theatre has been a launching pad include Mary Alice
Mary Alice
Mary Alice is an American actress.Alice was born Mary Alice Smith in Indianola, Mississippi, the daughter of Ozelar and Sam Smith. In 1987 she received a Tony for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her work in Fences...
, Ellen Barkin
Ellen Barkin
Ellen Barkin is an American film, television and theatre actress.-Early life:She was born Ellen Rona Barkin in Bronx, a borough of New York City, New York, the daughter of Evelyn , a hospital administrator who worked at Jamaica Hospital, and Sol Barkin, a chemical salesman...
, Roscoe Lee Browne
Roscoe Lee Browne
Roscoe Lee Browne was an American actor and director, known for his rich voice and dignified bearing.-Biography:Browne was the fourth son of a Baptist minister, Sylvanus S. Browne, and his wife Lovie...
, Kathleen Chalfant
Kathleen Chalfant
-Life and career:Chalfant was born as in San Francisco, California and raised in her parents' boarding house in Oakland. Her father, William Bishop, was an officer in the Coast Guard...
, Michael Douglas
Michael Douglas
Michael Kirk Douglas is an American actor and producer, primarily in movies and television. He has won three Golden Globes and two Academy Awards; first as producer of 1975's Best Picture, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and as Best Actor in 1987 for his role in Wall Street. Douglas received the...
, Faye Dunaway
Faye Dunaway
Faye Dunaway is an American actress.Dunaway won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Network after receiving previous nominations for the critically acclaimed films Bonnie and Clyde and Chinatown...
, Sandy Duncan
Sandy Duncan
Sandra Kay "Sandy" Duncan is an American singer, dancer and actress of stage and television, recognized through a blonde, pixie cut hairstyle and perky demeanor...
, Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman is an American actor, film director, aviator and narrator. He is noted for his reserved demeanor and authoritative speaking voice. Freeman has received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption and Invictus and won...
, Richard Gere
Richard Gere
Richard Tiffany Gere is an American actor. He began acting in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and a starring role in Days of Heaven. He came to prominence in 1980 for his role in the film American Gigolo, which established him as a leading man and a sex symbol...
, Joel Grey
Joel Grey
Joel Grey is an American stage and screen actor, singer, and dancer, best known for his role as the Master of Ceremonies in both the stage and film adaptation of the Kander & Ebb musical Cabaret. He has won the Academy Award, Tony Award and Golden Globe Award...
, Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Lee Hoffman is an American actor with a career in film, television, and theatre since 1960. He has been known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and vulnerable characters....
, Frank Langella
Frank Langella
-Early life:Langella, an Italian American, was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, the son of Angelina and Frank A. Langella Sr., a business executive who was the president of the Bayonne Barrel and Drum Company. Langella attended Washington Elementary School and Bayonne High School in Bayonne...
, Mary MacDonnell, Zakes Mokae
Zakes Mokae
Zakes Makgona Mokae was a South African-born American actor.-Life and career:Mokae was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, moved to Great Britain in 1961, and to the United States in 1969. He turned to acting at the same time as playwright Athol Fugard was emerging...
, Howard Rollins
Howard Rollins
Howard Ellsworth Rollins, Jr. was an American television, film, and stage actor. He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Coalhouse Walker, Jr...
, John Spencer
John Spencer
-Earls:*John Spencer, 1st Earl Spencer *John Spencer, 3rd Earl Spencer , British politician*John Spencer, 5th Earl Spencer , British politician...
, Ralph Waite
Ralph Waite
Ralph Waite is an American actor, whose most notable role was playing John Walton Sr. on the 1970s CBS TV series The Waltons, which he also occasionally directed...
, Sam Waterston
Sam Waterston
Samuel Atkinson "Sam" Waterston is an American actor and occasional producer and director. Among other roles, he is noted for his Academy Award-nominated portrayal of Sydney Schanberg in 1984's The Killing Fields, and his Golden Globe- and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning portrayal of Jack McCoy...
, and Sigourney Weaver
Sigourney Weaver
Sigourney Weaver is an American actress. She is best known for her critically acclaimed role of Ellen Ripley in the four Alien films: Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, for which she has received worldwide recognition .Other notable roles include Dana...
.
Awards
- Village Voice OBIE Awards: Several dozen including a grant and citation for “uncompromising commitment to unconventional and daring plays” – 1982- AUDELCO Awards for excellence in Black Theatre: “Williams & Walker” by Vincent Smith, “Ground People” by Leslie Lee, “Zora Neale Hurston” by Laurence Holder, and “Fly” by Joseph Edward
- The New England Theatre Conference Special Award for pioneering in the aiding and encouragement of the craft of playwriting for writers in other literary fields
- The Margo Jones Award – 1966
Literature to LifeLiterature to LifeLiterature to Life is a performance-based literacy program produced by The American Place Theater that presents verbatim adaptations of significant American literary works and serves thousands of students and educators around the United States...
A new chapter for the American Place Theatre began with its first Literature to LifeLiterature to Life
Literature to Life is a performance-based literacy program produced by The American Place Theater that presents verbatim adaptations of significant American literary works and serves thousands of students and educators around the United States...
performance in 1994 of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye
The Bluest Eye
The Bluest Eye is a 1970 novel by American author Toni Morrison. It is Morrison's first novel, written while Morrison was teaching at Howard University and was raising her two sons on her own. The story is about a year in the life of a young black girl in Lorain, Ohio, named Pecola...
. Literature to Life, The American Place Theatre's performance-based literacy program, presents professionally staged verbatim adaptations of significant American literary works. This educational program gives students a new form of access to literature by bringing to life the world of books with performances that create an atmosphere of discovery and spark the imagination.
Literature to Life has received multiple grants from the Carnegie Corporation, an organization that has supported more than 550 New York City arts and social service institutions since its inception in 2002, and which was made possible through a donation by New York City mayor
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
Michael Bloomberg
Michael Bloomberg
Michael Rubens Bloomberg is the current Mayor of New York City. With a net worth of $19.5 billion in 2011, he is also the 12th-richest person in the United States...
.
Books that have been adapted for Literature to Life's theatrical performances include Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451
Fahrenheit 451
Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel presents a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen start fires to burn books...
, Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried
The Things They Carried
The Things They Carried is a collection of related stories by Tim O'Brien, about a platoon of American soldiers in the Vietnam War, originally published in hardcover by Houghton Mifflin, 1990...
, Richard Wright's Black Boy
Black Boy
Black Boy is an autobiography by Richard Wright. The author explores his childhood and race relations in the South. Wright eventually moves to Chicago, where he establishes his writing career and becomes involved with the Communist Party....
, Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a 2005 novel by Jonathan Safran Foer.The book's narrator is a nine-year-old boy named Oskar Schell. Two years before the story begins, Oskar's father dies on 9/11...
, Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees
The Secret Life of Bees
This is about the 2002 Sue Monk Kidd novel. For the 2008 film, see Secret Life of Bees The Secret Life of Bees is a 2002 historical novel by American author Sue Monk Kidd. It received much critical acclaim and was a New York Times bestseller...
, Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner
The Kite Runner
The Kite Runner is a novel by Khaled Hosseini. Published in 2003 by Riverhead Books, it is Hosseini's first novel, and was adapted into a film of the same name in 2007....
, and Lois Lowry's The Giver
The Giver
The Giver is a 1993 soft science fiction novel by Lois Lowry. It is set in a society which is at first presented as a utopian society and gradually appears more and more dystopian. The novel follows a boy named Jonas through the twelfth year of his life...
.
Project 451, the funding initiative of Literature to Life, was starting during the 2008-2009 season to ensure that reading, writing, and the arts remain a primary component of the education of young American citizens. Spokespeople for Project 451 include Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...
, Alec Baldwin
Alec Baldwin
Alexander Rae "Alec" Baldwin III is an American actor who has appeared on film, stage, and television.Baldwin first gained recognition through television for his work in the soap opera Knots Landing in the role of Joshua Rush. He was a cast member for two seasons before his character was killed off...
, Sam Waterston
Sam Waterston
Samuel Atkinson "Sam" Waterston is an American actor and occasional producer and director. Among other roles, he is noted for his Academy Award-nominated portrayal of Sydney Schanberg in 1984's The Killing Fields, and his Golden Globe- and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning portrayal of Jack McCoy...
, and Jessica Lange
Jessica Lange
Jessica Phyllis Lange is an American actress who has worked in film, theatre and television. The recipient of several awards, including two Academy Awards, four Golden Globes and one Emmy, Lange is regarded as one of the première female actors of her generation.Lange was discovered by producer...
.
The titles for the 2010-2011 season are Junot Diaz
Junot Díaz
Junot Díaz is a Dominican-American writer and creative writing professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Central to Díaz's work is the immigrant experience...
' The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a best-selling novel written by Dominican author Junot Díaz. Although a work of fiction, the novel is set in New Jersey where Díaz was raised and deals explicitly with his ancestral homeland's experience under dictator Rafael Trujillo...
, adapted and directed by Elise Thoron and Piri Thomas
Piri Thomas
Piri Thomas was a writer and poet whose autobiography Down These Mean Streets became a best-seller.-Early years:...
' Down These Mean Streets
Down These Mean Streets
Down These Mean Streets is the autobiography of Piri Thomas, a Latino of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent who grew up in El Barrio , a section of Harlem that has a large Puerto Rican population...
adapted and directed by Wynn Handman
Wynn Handman
Wynn Handman, is the Artistic Director of The American Place Theatre, which he co-founded with Sidney Lanier and Michael Tolan in 1963. His role in the theatre has been to seek out, encourage, train, and present new and exciting writing and acting talent and to develop and produce new plays by...
. Literature to Life's new adaptation for the 2009-2010 season was Greg Mortenson
Greg Mortenson
Greg Mortenson, SPk is an American humanitarian, professional speaker, writer, and former mountaineer. He is the co-founder and executive director of the non-profit Central Asia Institute as well as the founder of the educational charity Pennies for Peace...
's best-selling book, Three Cups of Tea
Three Cups of Tea
Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time is a book by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin published by Penguin in 2006. For four years, the book remained on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller's list...
. Also, adapted and directed by Wynn Handman, the show features sixty minutes of performance from this globally important best seller. From the first heart-stopping opening moments stranded on a mountaintop, the actor brings the audience through the very intimate journey of one man’s fight against all odds to make a difference in the world.
Every year, The American Place Theatre hosts its annual Gala, the Literature to Life Awards. The 2011 Literature to Life Awards took place on May 23, 2011; began with an adapted theatrical performances of Down These Mean Streets starring actor Jamil Mena and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao starring Elvis Nolasco and honored Piri Thomas
Piri Thomas
Piri Thomas was a writer and poet whose autobiography Down These Mean Streets became a best-seller.-Early years:...
and Junot Diaz
Junot Díaz
Junot Díaz is a Dominican-American writer and creative writing professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Central to Díaz's work is the immigrant experience...
. The evening also included a performance written and performed by students from Newcomers High School, a high school for students who have recently immigrated to the US, in Long Island City.