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In Context: RadioLoveFest

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WNYC is back on stage at BAM for year three of RadioLoveFest, a multi-day festival running March 10—12. Context is everything, so get even closer to your favorites with this curated selection of related articles, interviews, and videos. For those of you who've already attended an event, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below and by posting on social media using #RadioLoveFest.

Program Notes

RadioLoveFest(PDF)

Read

Article
Laura Poitras Prepares 'Astro Noise' for the Whitney Museum(The New York Times)
“So many shocking things have been released, and what’s surprising is how little anything actually shocks people," says Poitras.

Interview
Honesty on the radio(Capital New York)
Death, Sex & Money host Anna Sale explains why she tackles the three topics least discussed in polite conversation.

BAM archivist Sharon Lehner and WNYC archivist Andy Lanset discuss archiving radio and performance in an age when content is king.

Watch & Listen

"I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things," notes Snowden.

Video
Radio legend Garrison Keillor takes his final bow (CNN)
The "shock jock of wholesomeness" reflects on how he learned to "blow his own horn," so to speak.

Video
From super fans to technical rehearsals, learn what goes into making the "on the road" version of this popular news trivia game.

Video
Neil Gaiman, Allison Williams, Isaac Mizrahi and more wish the popular program a very happy 30th Anniversary.

Now your turn...

Which show(s) did you see? How did you enjoy yourself? Was the live experience of your favorite show surprising? What'd you love? What didn't you love? Tell us what's on your mind in the comments below and on social media using #RadioLoveFest.

Brooklyn Before BAM: Whitman Weighs In

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Walt Whitman courtesy of the Brady-Handy Photograph Collection,
Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress
by Sarah Gentile

Brooklyn native Walt Whitman is one America's best-known poets. His words often inspire modern artists, as they did for BAM's Crossing Brooklyn Ferry music festival in 2012 and 2013. A comprehensive Whitman resource, whitmanarchive.org, contains "the veracious pen-jottings" of Whitman—not just about early Brooklyn, but on the Brooklyn Academy of Music not a year after it opened in 1861.

Whitman wrote for a number of Brooklyn newspapers, including the Brooklyn Standard. In late 1861 and early 1862, Whitman penned a series of nostalgic pieces entitled Brooklyniana, telling readers about the olden days. For the eighth article in the series, Whitman details what life was like before the establishment of the Academy's more formal spectacles. During the cold winters, Whitman recalls the "…'frolics', balls, sleigh rides" of yesteryear. In later years, Whitman was able to enjoy more sophisticated entertainment thanks to the new Academy, like the 1870 opera production of Poliuto starring the famous soprano Clara Louisa Kellogg.

The scholars behind the Walt Whitman Archive were able to update their research on Whitman based on the new identification we at the BAM Hamm Archives provided for a revised footnote to this article. This new insight into Brooklyn life pre-dating BAM, and other discoveries of BAM's rich history, are currently being catalogued for the soon-to-launch BAM Digital Archives, a project made possible by the generous support of the Leon Levy Foundation.

Advertisement in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1870.

Sarah Gentile is the Digital Project Archivist for the BAM Hamm Archives.

Campra's Festive Prologues & Entrées

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Photo: Vincent Pontet
By Christopher Corwin

Before William Christie and Les Arts Florissants performed the Paris Opera’s production of Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Atys to BAM for the first time in 1989 (it returned with Opéra Comique’s production in 1992 and 2011), those in the US curious about French Baroque opera had to be content with a handful of recordings, as live performances were few. LAF’s visits have since revealed further gems from this late-17th to early-18th century repertoire by Marc-Antoine Charpentier and Jean-Philippe Rameau. In April the group returns to the Howard Gilman Opera House for three performances of a well-known, yet rarely performed work from that era, André Campra’s Les Fêtes Vénitiennes, in a production by Opéra Comique.

Opera as an art form began to first coalesce in Italy in the late 16th century; the French had a later start. Pomone by Robert Cambert, considered the first French opera, appeared only in 1671. But soon Lully established its proscribed form—the tragédie en musique, a complex five-act musical drama proceeded by a mythological prologue. The opera’s serious dramatic action, however, was regularly interrupted by divertissements, extended “entertainments” that were often pastoral in nature.

Reinoud Van Mechelen and Rachel Redmond. Photo: Vincent Pontet
However by Lully’s time, Italian opera had become focused on star singers fueled by the wild popularity of castrati, male singers surgically “altered” as youngsters to preserve their high voices. The French rigorously rejected this brutal practice along with other common tropes of Italian opera—ironic, as Lully was born in Florence. His model for opera, much beloved by Louis XIV, nearly always included dance (a French passion) and a chorus, both rarely found in Italian works of the time.

Lully’s death in 1687 along with Louis’ declining influence fueled a shift away from long, formal tragédies. The ambitious Campra had moved to Paris in 1694 to become the maître de musique at Notre Dame Cathedral, but his duties there failed to staunch the allure of the theater. Giving in to temptation, in 1697 he composed the wildly successful L’Europe Galante, the first-ever opera-ballet. Rather than tell one story, this new mode instead included several entrées or short discrete acts, each with its own plot and characters. Rather than kings and gods, they depicted average citizens engaged in romantic, often comic imbroglios.

Seen as the font of mystery and sensuality, Italian culture was now embraced. One of the entrées of L’Europe Galante is entitled “L’Italie,” and “Le carnaval de Venise” proved to be Campra’s next runaway success. Like the tragedies, opéra-ballets featured ballets and choruses, but included shorter, sprightlier arias, or ariettes, sometimes sung in Italian.

After those early successes, Campra composed several serious operas in the Lullian style. But the public hungered for his lighter works, so he returned to opera-ballet in 1710 with Les Fêtes Vénitiennes or “Venetian Festivities.” After its premiere, Campra kept tinkering, and all told wrote two prologues and eight entrées for it.

Photo: Vincent Pontet
The version BAM audiences will hear will include the original prologue, “The Triumph of Folly over Reason during Carnival” but just one of the original entrées, “Serenades and Gamblers.” Two of the later acts have been added, “The Ball” and “The Opera,” the latter features a delicious opera-within-an-opera.

Like its predecessors, Les Fêtes Vénitiennes proved enormously popular, racking up more than 300 performances over the next 50 years and even lending its name to a celebrated painting by Jean-Antoine Watteau. However, like all of Campra’s theatrical works, it disappeared for more than two centuries until the renewed interest in French baroque opera began in earnest in the 1960s and 70s.

Les Arts Florissants presented the greatest opéra-ballet of all-—Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes—at BAM in 1993. Although the group has performed Idoménée, his magnificent tragédie, along with the composer’s sacred works and cantatas, Les Fêtes Vénitiennes is its first Campra opéra-ballet. Premiered last year at the Opéra Comique in Paris, Les Fêtes arrives in a ravishing and witty production by Robert Carsen whose previous collaborations with LAF of Handel’s Orlando (1996) and Rameau’s Les Boréades (2003) traveled to BAM. Ed Wubbe’s essential choreography will be danced by members of the Scapino Ballet Rotterdam. The charm of Campra’s beguiling ariettes (short arias) and the infectious verve of his dance music assure that a delightful discovery awaits BAM audiences in April.

Les Fêtes Vénitiennes comes to the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House April 14—17, and great tickets are still available.

Christopher Corwinwrites frequently about opera for Parterre Box, and his work has also appeared in Musical America and San Francisco Classical Voice.

Reprinted from March 2016 BAMbill.

Graphic Details: 20 Years of the BAM Visual Identity

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Image: Detail of the BAM 1995 Next Wave Festival brochure, designed by Michael Bierut


How do you make one thing speak for a place that does many things? And how often should that thing change throughout the course of 29 presidential administrations, two world wars, and the advent of live tweeting?

Most importantly, should it have serifs?

From the 1860s until the 1970s, the BAM visual identity was a motley assortment of styles reflecting shifting zeitgeists and programming. Letterpressed broadsides and hand-drawn invitations for the Civil War years. Civilized neoclassicism for the genteel interwar period. Modernist typeface mashups for the era of Sputnik. In the 1970s, the identity became more focused with the creation of a new logo. In the 1980s, artists and designers like Roy Lichtenstein, Keith Haring, and Massimo Vignelli offered their creative twists.

But it was in 1995 that famed Pentagram designer Michael Bierut developed the iconic BAM identity that persists today today: the News Gothic typeface, blown up to big scale, and cropped in various creative ways. Enjoy this tour of pre-Bierut BAM visual design, together with a closer look at the way designers have kept his original conception alive into the present.



The Old Academy
1861—1900

Nineteenth-century letterpresses often used wooden letters for large typography. Posters could feature over a dozen different fonts, limited only by which sizes and styles the press operator had on hand. This poster was designed in 1864. When a unique and fanciful design was called for, BAM could commission hand-lettering reproduced by lithography.

Designer unknown
Hand-drawn lettering on an invitation. Designer unknown


Prewar Era
1900—1938


When photography was still a relatively new medium, traditional intaglio printmaking techniques (reproduced with inexpensive lithographic printing) remained in common use. Countless depictions of BAM’s opera house were distributed using this technique, gracing the covers of programs for over fifty years.

Designer unknown

Modernism
1950s

Following World War II, American graphic designers were inspired by European modernism, refracted through a New World lens. BAM was no exception. Programs from this era featured Bauhaus typefaces like Futura, designed by Paul Renner. Playful mix-and-match typography gives these pieces an informal feel, while demonstrating awareness of new trends.

Designer unknown


1960s and 70s

Helvetica defined 60s and 70s graphic design. With that iconic typeface, Swiss graphic designer Josef Müller-Brockmann created a groundbreaking graphic system for the Zurich Opera House. The influence of his work is evident in BAM graphic design from this era: simple, organized sans-serif type, bold colors, and empty space. The program below was designed the same year that this new “international typographic style” conquered New York with Massimo Vignelli’s familiar graphic identity for the New York City Transit Authority (now the MTA).

Designer unknown

The First Logo
1972

BAM adopts its first logo. Perhaps inspired by the arched windows on the front of the Peter Jay Sharp Building, this logo endured at varying levels of prominence until 1995. It still shows up unexpectedly throughout the BAM campus, and can even be seen on the gate near the restrooms on the third floor of the opera house.




Dawn of Next Wave
1983

The Next Wave festival began in 1983 as a showcase of bold, pathbreaking work in the performing arts, and with it a logo (designed by Valerie Pettis for Doublespace) with horizontal lines that merge positive and negative space. A decade later, these stripes inspired BAM’s 1995 Next Wave redesign. The Next Wave also initiated a series of collaborations with New York visual artists, including posters featuring art by Roy Lichtenstein (see below), Keith Haring, Alex Katz, Richard Avedon, and many more.


Designer: Alexander Isley

Designer: Roy Lichtenstein

Early 1990s
1990—1995

As the BAM audience bought personal computers, used mobile phones, and watched MTV, graphic trends kept up with the multitasking times. Designs from this era, while individually remarkable, were wildly diverse and lacked a unified voice; this set the stage for the 1995 overhaul of BAM’s visual identity.

 
Designer: Massimo Vignelli

Designer: Russek Advertising




Designing the BAM Identity
By Michael Bierut
Michael Bierut's original sketchbook from 1995
I was inspired by the legendary mid-century advertising art director Helmut Krone. “I’ve spent my whole life fighting logos,” he once said. “A logo says, ‘I am an ad. Turn the page.’” Instead, he created indelible identities for his clients by making distinctive choices and deploying them relentlessly, most famously on behalf of Volkswagen, still using the combination of Futura and white space that he introduced in his “Think small” ad in 1959.
So I hit on the idea of using one typeface, workhorse News Gothic, but with a twist: we would cut the type off, as if it couldn’t fit in the frame. As I explained to Harvey and his colleagues Karen Brooks Hopkins and Joe Melillo, this suggested that BAM crossed borders and couldn’t be contained on a single stage. But it was economical, too, allowing us to use four-inch-tall letters in two inches worth of space. It was like seeing King Kong’s eye in your bedroom window, I explained. Even if you couldn’t see the whole beast, you knew it was big.
—Excerpted from Michael Bierut’s How to Use Graphic Design to Sell Things, Explain Things, Make Things Look Better, Make People Laugh, Make People Cry, and (Every Once in a While) Change the World, Harper Collins: 2015


Designer: Michael Bierut





Next Wave Festival
Special Section in New York Magazine

1996

BAM goes silver. The 1996 Next Wave design drew heavily from the first brochure in 1995 in layout. The differentiation comes chiefly in the technique. A glossy paper is chosen in contrast to the previous year’s matte paper. A silver metallic ink is used, rather than four-color process. This is an early demonstration of the flexibility of the system… nearly everything can change, and it still feels like BAM.


Designer: Richard Mantel



“Happy Clicking”
1996

The early days of the BAM design aesthetic coincided with the early days of the internet. Much of the world was still trying to figure out how best to use this new medium—for BAM it meant a place to list events, describe our mission, post contact information, and offer information superhighway drivers a “bulletin board.” Online ticket sales wouldn’t happen for another ten years.

Designer: Pegasus Internet



15th Anniversary Next Wave Festival
1997

Otherwise adhering strictly to the BAM style guide, the 15th Next Wave Festival brochure expanded on the BAM look by incorporating the heavier News Gothic Bold into titles—but only in the ‘x’ and ‘v’—forming the roman numeral for fifteen.


Designer: Rafael Weil


BAMcinématek Calendar
1999

A new venue, and a new take on the BAM style. With the opening of BAM Rose Cinemas in 1999, a separate but connected identity was designed for BAM’s expanded film programming. The cornerstone of this plan was the bimonthly calendar. This bible for BAM cinéphiles has been published without interruption ever since, and while it underwent a format shift in 2012, the core of the design remains.

Designer: Jason Ring


Next Wave Festival & Spring Season

1999—2000

In Beirut’s initial executions, the type was interrupted by horizontal bars. Here, the bars are transformed by scale—thin lines are stacked tightly to become metaphorical waves for Next Wave and grass for the Spring Season. These brochures are also of note as they’re two of the very few in recent BAM history that don’t feature a photo.

 
Designer: Jason Ring

Designer: Jason Ring


Next Wave Festival
2000

This is the first time that Bierut’s specified horizontal bars become translucent. Type is no longer completely obstructed by these forms, but becomes less visible.


Designer: Jason Ring


Next Wave Down Under
2001

In 2001 the Next Wave Festival focused, for the first time ever, on a single country’s performing arts culture. The design took a turn as well, as typography appeared to flip onto the southern hemisphere. The axis of the crop remains horizontal, but the letterforms are flipped ninety degrees. A clever graphic manifestation of the programming.

Designer: Eric Olson


Next Wave Festival
2002

Here the type breaks from a horizontal baseline, drifting and shifting scales and exploring cropping in a new way as letters overlap one another. This design introduced new possibilities for cropping beyond the horizontal line—influencing much of BAM’s graphic design since.

Designer: Eric Olson


Next Wave Festival
2004

This season’s look plays between black and white, positive and negative. But what’s impressive is what’s not there. This “implied crop” is a graphic trompe l'oeil—tricking the viewer into seeing forms that are not there. Rather than cut off entire typographic stems, the crop is mid-form. This creates the illusion of an entirely other typeface by adding variance in stroke weight.


Designer: Eric Olson


Next Wave Festival
2006

At BAM, stripes usually crop type; here they’re converted into containers. As the stripe colors shift, so does the scale of the letterforms, allowing the eye to quickly differentiate what could have easily become a jumble.

Designer: Ian Searcy



25th Next Wave Festival

2007

BAM celebrates 25 years of Next Wave, and neon pink pours into the frame. Color and letterforms are painstakingly woven into each image to create an illusion of typography in real space with the performers.
Designer: Clara Cornelius


Spring Season
2009

Continuing the exploration of letterforms in real space, for the first time type breaks into the third dimension, weaving through photos, cropped by performers’ bodies. Subtle lighting effects add to the illusion.

Designer: Adam Hitt

BAM Fisher Inaugural Season
2011

For the first time since 1987, BAM opens the doors to a new building. This 21st-century arts space, named in honor of Richard B. Fisher, allows BAM to present work from emerging artists, for smaller audiences, in a more flexible space. The design strategy was to brand the Fisher performances with a graphic system similar, yet distinct from the other Next Wave Festival shows. This identity featured dramatic black and white photography by Nina Mouritzen, all shot in the Fisher Building while it was under construction.

Designer: Clara Cornelius

BAM: The Complete Works
2011

To celebrate the 150th anniversary of BAM, its rich history was recreated in the form of a 384-page hardcover book. Tonally distinct from the attention-stealing typography used in seasonal communications, the book features a classic, refined typographic style with large black type for emphasis used sparingly. The visual impact lies primarily in the archival photography, and the book anchors the sober end of News Gothic’s capacities.

Designer: Clara Cornelius



The Ignite Campaign
2012—2015

Ignite was a three year, $15-million capital campaign to support expanding arts education at BAM. The campaign broadened participation by encouraging smaller donations ranging from $15 to $250. To reach, inform, and energize these new donors, the campaign focused on newer media channels—with an expanded interactive web presence, a series of original videos, emails, and social media outreach.

Designers: Patrick Morin, Ryan Rowlett, and  Ben Cohen



Winter/Spring Season
2014

The identity for Spring 2014 employed an edited color palette, a templated photo-inside-a-photo layout, and type at a massive scale. Words are completely obscured as they weave through space, revealing fragments of typography that leave meaning behind to become pure form.

Designer: Patrick Morin

BAMcinemaFest
2014

By its sixth year, BAMcinemaFest had grown into one of the primary New York presenters of high-profile film premieres. To celebrate its growing profile, designer Katie Positerry reimagined the BAM typeface, News Gothic. The letterforms reference a neon sign, creating a typographic metaphor for projected light. A shifting circle, when animated, also becomes a spotlight illuminating hidden forms.

Designer: Katie Positerry


BAMkids
2015

With the opening of the BAM Fisher and continually expanding programming for children and families, BAM committed to creating a new sub-brand. BAMkids takes the hallmarks of the BAM visual identity, and adds a secondary kid-friendly typeface called Frankfurter. Children of BAM staff and friends serve as models.


Designer: Michelle Angelosanto


Migrating Forms
2016

At BAM, it’s not uncommon for the seed of a design to originate in print and only later be adapted to video. But for Migrating Forms, a boundary-pushing film and video festival, that model was turned on its head. Ideas were passed back and forth between print and video, each informing the other. As with BAMcinemaFest, BAM’s typeface was completely reimagined into an ever-changing animated system, creating the illusion of motion and depth. It maintains legibility while flirting with obfuscation and formal abstraction. It echos the festival’s hard-to-pin-down programming with an identity that is always in flux.

Designers: Kyle Richardson, Alison Whitworth, and Kaitlyn Chandler

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Folger Gems

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During King and Country: Shakespeare’s Great Cycle of Kings, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s repertory run at the BAM Harvey from March 24—May 1, audiences are in for a treat—rare and ancient artifacts from the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC will be on display in the Harvey lobby, including two quartos and two promptbooks. Viewers will also see a video and visual history of Shakespeare performed at BAM through the ages, focusing on the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Macbeth annotated promptbook, courtesy Folger Library and Museum.
By James Shapiro

Coming to the Harvey: Rare Shakespeare Quartos and Promptbooks 

Think of a Shakespeare quarto as an inexpensive paperback. It’s called a quarto because the sheet of paper on which it was printed was folded in half, then folded in half again, producing eight pages (four double-sided leaves). Limited to print runs of a thousand or so, Elizabethan quartos were sold unbound and quickly read out of existence. Few have survived: the first of two extant copies of the 1603 quarto of Hamlet was only rediscovered in 1823 and it wasn’t until the early 20th century that the sole surviving copy of the first quarto of Titus Andronicus was found in the home of a Swedish postal clerk.

Early quartos of Shakespeare’s plays are exceedingly scarce. While Henry Clay Folger may have been able to purchase 82 copies of Shakespeare’s First Folio (1623), he was only able to acquire a single edition of each of these rare early quartos of Richard II from 1598 and 1615.

Astor Place Riot newspaper page. Courtesy Folger Library and Museum.
Both copies to be displayed at the BAM Harvey will open to the play’s most politically charged moment, Act 4, scene 1—the deposition of Richard II by Henry Bolingbroke, the future King Henry IV. Crucially, in the earlier version on the left, 163 of the play’s most sensitive lines are missing, including King Richard’s poignant words as he surrenders his crown. The deposition scene was undoubtedly censored out of fear of offending Queen Elizabeth, who saw herself figured in her predecessor: “I am Richard II,” she famously said, “Know ye not that?”

Richard II
continued to speak to its political moment. A few years later it was this very scene that likely encouraged the followers of the Earl of Essex to pay Shakespeare’s company to publicly stage Richard II on the eve of Essex’s failed uprising against the queen in 1601.

Before Shakespeare’s plays could be staged they had to pass the inspection of the Master of the Revels, who apparently approved of this scene in 1595. But censorship of printed texts, which fell to the Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury, could be more stringent; that is the likeliest explanation for the cut made in the earliest quartos. It was only after the death of Elizabeth in 1603 that the censored lines could safely be restored to printed editions, seen in the 1615 quarto.
There will be a pair of promptbooks on display at the Harvey, on loan from the Folger Shakespeare Library—one of Charles Kean’s Richard II, the other of Edwin Forrest’s Macbeth. What came to be called the promptbook (or simply “book”) was a vital part of the Elizabethan theater. In Shakespeare’s time, acting companies changed the play they staged every day and their repertories consisted of a dozen or more new plays in addition to a score of popular old favorites. 

Charles Kean costume designs for Henry V. Courtesy Folger Library and Museum.
It’s remarkable that Elizabethan actors could memorize and recall so many parts, and lapses were inevitable. So a prompter stood by, promptbook in hand, ready to call out a line, remind a tardy player of his entrance, or signal when music or stage effects were required. Elizabethan promptbooks (only a few survive) were essentially marked up copies of play scripts, and often noted cuts or revisions as well. By the 19th century many promptbooks had become increasingly elaborate, and it was not unusual for them to be published.

BAM opened in 1861, only 12 years after the infamous Astor Place Riot, when thousands of New Yorkers protested the performance of Macbeth by the leading British actor William Charles Macready, the great rival of the American Shakespeare star, Edwin Forrest. The protest turned bloody when the State Militia opened fire on the rioters, killing 20 and wounding 100 or so. Lingering tensions perhaps explain why, when the forerunner of the modern-day RSC first performed in the US in 1913 under the aegis of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, the multi-city tour steered clear of New York City. According to The New York Times, the leader of that company, Frank Benson, was quoted (he insisted misquoted) as saying that he wouldn’t “play New York because New Yorkers were not educated up to Shakespeare.”

At BAM in 1865 Charles Kean performed the role of a wronged and dignified Shylock, a role for which his father, the famous British Shakespeare actor Edmund Kean, had been widely celebrated. His beautifully annotated version of Richard II on display, illustrated by Thomas Willement, gives some sense of the status and appeal of Shakespeare playbooks by the mid-19th century. Edwin Forrest played Macbeth at BAM in 1862, a year after its opening, and the final page of his promptbook in the Harvey display shows the sort of extensive cuts typical of 19th-century productions, with Malcolm’s final speech cut in its entirety, and Macbeth (played by Forrest himself) given all but the last word.

James Shapiro is the Larry Miller Professor of English at Columbia University, and has written a number of books on Shakespeare, including the latest,
The Year of Lear (2015).

Treasures from the Folger Shakespeare Library is made possible thanks to the support of The Robert W. Wilson Charitable Trust and the Leon Levy Foundation.

Additional support provided by Jim & Mary Ottaway.

Reprinted from March 2016 BAMbill.

RadioLoveFest Retrospective

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by Anna Troester

RadioLoveFest, a multi-day festival co-produced by BAM and WNYC, celebrates public radio and its community of fans. Beloved programs like Wait, Wait... Don’t Tell Me! and The Moth Radio Hour are presented live at BAM. The festival showcases familiar programs, hosts, and celebrity guests in a theater setting that invites new opportunities and surprises. It returns to BAM for its third year March 10—12, and in anticipation of this year’s lineup, let’s revisit highlights from RadioLoveFests past.

For the inaugural RadioLoveFest in June 2014, the radio programs explored the possibilities of a new format—performance for live audience. Ira Glass and This American Life created an evening of journalism presented as radio drama. Exemplifying this endeavor, Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton, In the Heights) performed in his original 14-minute work, 21 Chump Street: The Musical, inspired by a piece of reporting on a high school student who fell in love with an undercover cop.



Ira’s cousin, Philip Glass, created and performed a brand new opera, Help (excerpt at 8:00), based on a charming and true story of an opera singer who accidentally locked herself in a hotel room closet—and unknowingly recorded the experience.

The festival featured an eclectic roster of performing artists showcasing new projects, including a strong Brooklyn-based contingent. With a bit of  stand-up from comedian Wyatt Cenac, who joined musician Hamilton Leithauser (The Walkmen) on Soundcheck, and a live performance by They Might Be Giants (include show and link if possible), who debuted their song "Hate the Villanelle" on Ask Me Another, the festival fostered genuine hometown love from New York City radio lovers.


Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, the weekly NPR quiz program, welcomed fashion guru Tim Gunn (Project Runway) as the featured Not My Job guest. Host Peter Sagal with panelists Mo Rocca (CBS Sunday Morning), Peter Gross (Late Night with Seth Meyers), and Jessie Klein (Inside Amy Schumer) delighted the audience with live versions of familiar games and steady quipping on highlights in the news.

For year two, RadioLoveFest returned to BAM in May 2015 with another exciting lineup of old favorites and new ideas, showcasing a wide range of topics and personalities from Richard Rodgers to Mexico’s fascination with Morrissey and Death, Sex & Money.

Delving into scientific and philosophical questions, RadioLab hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich spoke with neurologist and author Oliver Sacks in one of his final public interviews. RadioLab producer Molly Webster shared a fascinating true story of astronomer Summer Ash (who coincidentally leads BAM’s A Look at the Stars events) and her revelations about the human heart after undergoing surgery (RadioLab Live: Tell-Tale Hearts). With sound effects by So Percussion and recordings of human heartbeats, some viewers were so moved they actually fainted…though no one was hurt. (More here at 23:12.)

There was no shortage of personal stories from well-known figures. As part of The Moth RadioHour, actor and teen-icon Molly Ringwald shared a touching and true story of how she ended up in the principal’s office with her daughter. In a wonderful role reversal for Fresh Air listeners to witness, host Terry Gross took the interviewee’s chair in a conversation with the ever-candid Marc Maron for a peek into the mind of a woman who has made a successful career of interviewing others.



Political conversation, classical performance, and pop culture celebration rounded out the festival. Brian Lehrer moderated a heated discussion with scholars and commentators on the subject of
Islamophobia. WQXR hosted a 13.5 hour piano sonata marathon. And notably, On the Media’s Brooke Gladstone presented a screening of Galaxy Quest featuring Alan Rickman, while John Schaefer presented The Man Who Fell to Earth featuring David Bowie. Recent tributes to those passed remind us of their brilliant contributions in those films and beyond.

For the third annual RadioLoveFest, we will be joined by Garrison Keiller, Edward Snowden (via live video), John Cameron Mitchell, Rosie Perez, and others for another year of poignant personal stories, fresh ideas, and riveting performances, and the unpredictable.

BAM Art Auction—Ready: look, click!

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Daniel Heidkamp, Vapor world, 2016, oil on linen, 24"x15"
By Susan Yung

The 12th Annual BAM Art Auction will be held online March 16—31, in collaboration with Paddle8 and Bridget Donahue gallery. It’s the yearly opportunity to acquire some amazing contemporary art from a roster of more than 100 artworks, curated with BAM audiences in mind. Proceeds benefit the institution and its myriad programs which range from performances on the big stages; art exhibitions; repertory films and first releases; shows for kids; literary events and classes, and more. The artworks can be viewed and bid on at Paddle8.com beginning March 16; the collection will be on view at Bridget Donahue at 99 Bowery from March 29—31, with a closing party on the 31st.

The auction also supports BAM Visual Art, an umbrella under which fall many varied projects and exhibitions. BAM has for decades had a close relationship to visual art, featuring a key artwork each season on the cover of BAMbill. Many renowned artists have contributed, including the current 2016 Winter/Spring Artist, Elizabeth Murray, whose work was also the focus of a recent exhibition in several locations at BAM. The multifarious venues at BAM, including some unconventional spaces, have offered opportunities for site-specific installations that engage in a dialogue with the buildings themselves, such as in the soaring Lepercq Space and the multi-story atrium at the Fisher Building. In addition, BAM has published portfolios including photography and print editions by leading artists of our time.

Amanda Valdez, ghost pilot, 2015. Embroidery, gouache, acrylic, and fabric. 20” diameter.
Holly Shen, BAM’s curator of visual arts, talks about highlights from this year’s auction. “I am excited that Bridget Donahue will host the 12th Annual BAM Art Auction exhibition and closing party in her gallery at 99 Bowery, which opened in 2015.” Shen describes the gallery: “I knew the moment I saw the space that it was a perfect venue for our fundraiser—an expansive, rectangular room with high ceilings, original wood floors bearing visible traces of its former life as an industrial space, and a central location. A veteran of the New York gallery world, Bridget has been extremely supportive of our cause and worked with us to find a slot when we could offer viewing days in addition to the closing party.”

The Honorary Artist Chair for 2016 is Teresita Fernández, an acclaimed sculptor and installation artist who has lived and maintained a studio in nearby Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. She has worked with co-chairs Tony Bechara and Mark Diker to cull an intriguing and diverse slate of artworks from near and far. “We’re honored that Teresita Fernández is this year’s Honorary Artist Chair,” says Shen. “As an internationally acclaimed artist with a studio in Brooklyn for more than two decades, we couldn’t think of a better spokesperson for our auction.”

Ryan MacFarland, Adept, Adapt, 2011. Traditional C-Print. 12”x16”
The 2016 BAM Art Auction committee includes representatives from leading galleries such as Marianne Boesky, Julie Saul, Hauser & Wirth, and many more. “We are thrilled to have such a powerhouse list of artists participating this year, with works by both emerging and established artists, local and international,” notes Shen. “I’m particularly looking forward to seeing pieces by Richard Colman, Bosco Sodi, B. Wurtz, Daniel Heidkamp, Brian Kokoska, and Chris Succo.”

Works by well-known artists such as Alex Katz and Elizabeth Peyton sit side-by-side with experimenters such as C. Spencer Yeh, a composer/performance artist, represented by 12 over 11, a page from a musical score that encapsulates visual, sonic, time-based, and symbolic forms, and Amanda Valdez, whose ghost pilot (above) manages to be abstract and hilariously anthropomorphic at once.

The breadth of art available in the 2016 auction, plus the ease of the interface through rising auctioneer Paddle8, make it easier than ever to add to a collection in the name of a good cause. 

Ready: look, click!

Susan Yung is Senior Editorial Manager at BAM.
Reprinted from March 2016 BAMbill.

In Context: Richard II

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David Tennant (Doctor Who, Broadchurch) makes his US stage debut as the ineffectual king in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s masterful take on Shakespeare’s Richard II, a study of squandered sovereignty. Context is everything, so get even closer to the show with this curated selection of related articles, interviews, and videos. After you've attended the show, let us know what you thought below and by posting on social media using #KingandCountry.

Program Notes

King and Country: Shakespeare's Great Cycle of Kings (PDF)

Read

Article
Shakespeare's Henriad (BAM Blog)
Written in part to fuel nationalist sentiment during the Golden Age of Elizabeth I, Shakespeare’s Henriad is a sweeping study of power squandered, seized, and dumped in the proverbial lap.

Article
Folger Gems (BAM Blog)
Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro discusses the promptbooks, rare quartos, and other treasures from the Folger Shakespeare Library on display during King and Country.

Summary
Richard II Plot Synopsis (RSC.org.uk)
Learn to distinguish Henry Bollingbroke from the Duke of Gloucester before the show.

Watch & Listen

Video
Production Diary: Richard II (YouTube)
Follow director Gregory Doran into the Richard II rehearsal process in this multipart behind-the-scenes peek at the production.

Video
Interview with David Tennant on Richard II (YouTube)
Michael Jackson as a modern-day analog to Richard II? David Tennent opines.

Now your turn...

Which show(s) did you see? What was your favorite moment in the show? Did David Tennant transcend his Dr. Who fame? Did Richard deserve his fate? Tell us what's on your mind in the comments below and on social media using #KingandCountry.

In Context: Henry IV Parts I & II

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Henry IV fends off rebellion, Falstaff cavorts at the tavern, and a crown is passed from father to son in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s take on Shakespeare's epic two-part play Henry IV, featuring Antony Sher and Alex Hassell. Context is everything, so get even closer to the show with this curated selection of related articles, interviews, and videos. After you've attended the show, let us know what you thought below and by posting on social media using #KingandCountry.

Program Notes

King and Country: Shakespeare's Great Cycle of Kings (PDF)

Read

Article
Shakespeare's Henriad (BAM Blog)
Written in part to fuel nationalist sentiment during the Golden Age of Elizabeth I, Shakespeare’s Henriad is a sweeping study of power squandered, seized, and dumped in the proverbial lap.

Article
Folger Gems (BAM Blog)
Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro discusses the promptbooks, rare quartos, and other treasures from the Folger Shakespeare Library that will be on display during King and Country.

Summary
Synopsis: Henry IV Part 1 & 2 (KingAndCountry.org)
Study up now. Disappear into Shakespeare’s language later.

Watch & Listen

Website
The Royal Shakespeare Company’s Henry IV Part 1 & 2
Context and more context for the RSC’s epic productions—including cast video interviews and information, production shots, and more.

Video
On the Set Design of Henry IV Parts I & II (YouTube)
“It has to be a bit grubbier,” says Stephen Brimson Lewis. Fleas and all.

Video
RSC Fight Week: Stage Fighting in Henry IV (YouTube)
Henry and Hotspur go toe to toe in rehearsal.

Now your turn...

What did you think? Were Jasper Britton and Alex Hassell a convincing father/son pair? Tell us what's on your mind in the comments below and on social media using #KingandCountry.

In Context: Henry V

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A young king exercises his ambition in the RSC’s take on Shakespeare’s incisive drama Henry V. Context is everything, so get even closer to the show with this curated selection of related articles, interviews, and videos. After you've attended the show, let us know what you thought below and by posting on social media using #KingandCountry.

Program Notes

Article
Shakespeare's Henriad (BAM Blog)
Written in part to fuel nationalist sentiment during the Golden Age of Elizabeth I, Shakespeare’s Henriad is a sweeping study of power squandered, seized, and dumped in the proverbial lap.

Article
Folger Gems (BAM Blog)
Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro discusses the promptbooks, rare quartos, and other treasures from the Folger Shakespeare Library on display during King and Country.

Summary
Synopsis: Henry V (KingAndCountry.org)
Study up now. Disappear into Shakespeare’s language later.

Watch & Listen

Website
The Royal Shakespeare Company’s Henry V (KingAndCountry.org)
Context and more context for the RSC’s epic production—including cast video interviews and information, production shots, and more.

Video
Alex Hassell on Henry V(YouTube)
“His desire to cut loose might be still in there somewhere,” says Hassell of his youthful character.

Video
Oliver Ford Davies on the Chorus (YouTube)
“He is the unreliable narrator,” remarks Davies of his peculiar role in Henry V.

Now your turn...

What did you think? Did England and France, Henry and Katherine, convincingly unite? Tell us what's on your mind in the comments below and on social media using #KingandCountry.

Wilde Again

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L-R: Charlie Row, Rupert Everett, Cal MacAninch. Photo: Johan Persson
By Brian Scott Lipton

Life is full of second chances, even if we don’t always make the most of them. Take the case of the great Irish dramatist Oscar Wilde, whose reputation never quite recovered after his ill-conceived love affair with the young poet, Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas. Or, conversely, take the renowned British playwright David Hare, whose very play on that subject, The Judas Kiss, received tepid reviews on Broadway in 1998, but which has been since revived to glorious reviews by director Neil Armfield and star Rupert Everett (whom the UK Telegraph says “was born to play Wilde”). This acclaimed production now comes to the BAM Harvey from May 11 through June 12. For BAMbill, I recently spoke to Hare about what inspired the work and what has changed over the past two decades.

What was your original inspiration for writing The Judas Kiss?

I’d admired Wilde since I was 10 years old. I tried to study him at university, but I was told by my Cambridge English literature supervisor that Wilde was not serious, and that if I wrote my final year dissertation on him, I would be a laughing stock. I ignored the advice. I never wanted to write biographical plays but I had always been fascinated by the question of why Wilde turned down the opportunity to run away and avoid prosecution. But I also loved the period of his life after prison when, in exile and with apparent perversity, he returned to the lover who had precipitated his downfall. I decided that making a play out of these two separate, apparently incomprehensible actions would be exciting.

Many of your plays deal with outsiders, activists, and artists—all of which describe Oscar Wilde. How do you feel The Judas Kiss fits into your oeuvre?

I was first drawn to Wilde by his insistence that morality does not consist of telling others what to do, it’s what you do yourself. This is my own view. If you think of all the greatest women and men in history, they illuminate by example, not by instruction. They keep their noses out of other peoples’ business. They don’t judge others, they judge themselves.

What kind of research did you undertake before writing the play?

Wilde is not just a great writer, but he is the inspiration for great writing in others. There are loads of good books about him, most especially those by his grandson Merlin Holland. But remember, my play dramatizes two events which happened behind closed doors, so finally I depend on imagination, not research.

Rupert Everett.
How long did it take to write the play?

The play was first done in London in 1998. I spruced it up a bit for Broadway later that spring. The first act was very difficult to write because it contains so much information which I was trying to convey painlessly. But the second act wrote itself.

In an age where homosexuality is not a crime in many countries, and legalized gay marriage is spreading across the world, what relevance do you feel the play has in 2016?

Honestly, Wilde and Bosie had both been having sex with boys, some of whom who were under-age. Is that any more acceptable today? I don’t think so. As Bosie says, the paradox of Wilde is that he’s a gay hero who never considered telling the truth.

How different does this production feel to you than the original one? 

The 1998 production was a sort of legendary mess. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. Or maybe it was all our faults, mine as much as anyone’s. Sometimes, with the best intentions, everything goes wrong. That’s life. So when I saw Neil Armfield’s Sydney production for Belvoir Street Theatre, with [the late] Bille Browne as Wilde, I felt overwhelming relief that I wasn’t mad since the play on stage at last resembled the one in my head. When I read what Chekhov went through on The Seagull—disaster in St Petersburg, vindication in Moscow—I think how lucky he was to wait only two years. I waited 14 years!

How much of the success of this current production relies on Rupert Everett as Wilde?

When Rupert offered to play the part in London, I insisted Neil direct it. Some people believed that I must have re-written it to achieve so complete a transformation, but in fact every word was the same. The reality is that Rupert is giving a great performance, and how many of those do we see?

Brian Scott Lipton is a noted writer about the performing arts, culture, and fashion based in New York City.
Reprinted from April 2016 BAMbill.

The Mask Is Mine

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Photo courtesy Janus Films.


By Ashley Clark

Ousmane Sembène’s Black Girl (1966), based upon the director’s own short story, charts the fortunes of an optimistic young Senegalese woman, Diouana (Mbissine Thérèse Diop), who leaves her nation’s capital of Dakar to work for a bourgeois white family in a small town adjacent to the picturesque French Riviera.

Widely considered the first-ever feature film made in Africa by a black African director, this absorbing 64-minute drama, shot in stark monochromatic tones, resonates equally as a vivid character study and an incisive commentary on the pernicious inequalities of postcolonial power relations between cultures. (Senegal became fully independent from France in 1960, six years before Black Girl, and three before Sembène’s debut short film, the equally unsentimental Borom Sarret, about the travails of a luckless wagoner. They screen together at BAMcinématek from May 18—24.) This postcolonial complexity is reflected in Black Girl’s production history: its hyper-critical screenplay was the only one ever rejected for production funding by the then-head of the French Ministry of Cooperation’s Bureau de Cinema—the key funding body for Francophone African cinema—on subject matter alone. Sembène invented the term “mégotage” (cigarette-butt cinema) to describe the lengths to which African filmmakers went to scrabble together budgets.

Black Girl opens with the image of a ship approaching shore, accompanied by an ominous sound collage of viciously whipping winds and the vessel’s demonically blaring horn—by the time Diouana emerges, a mood of unease has been conjured; it does not dissipate over the next hour. In her new home, Diouana is treated with brusque tolerance by her hosts, but their hospitality soon gives way to open hostility from the icy matriarch (Anne-Marie Jelinck), and indifference from her husband (Robert Fontaine), an ostensibly nice guy who fails to offer Diouana the necessary support as she slides inexorably into depression.

Photo courtesy Janus Films
Having been promised work looking after her hosts’ children, Diouana is instead restricted to grinding menial chores—the ritualistic rigors of which are captured largely in clinical mid-shot by Sembène’s camera—and subjected to open racism. In a grim, reverse spin on Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, the mother is bent on styling Diouana to reflect her view of how the ideal postcolonial subject should appear: frowsy, supplicant, joyless—“You’re not going to a party,” she tells Diouana, handing her an apron to replace her poignantly effervescent uniform of a dress and high heels.

Diouana is, unquestionably, a victim, but she is no mere blank. For one, she is vibrantly incarnated by non-professional actress Diop, who was recommended to Sembène by a photographer friend. (A seamstress by trade, Diop made the majority of her own costumes.) When the director judiciously cuts to screen-filling close-ups of her plaintive, open face—tears in her eyes, eyes to the sky—her pain registers like a punch to the gut. Moreover, Sembène, already the author of four successful novels by the time he made Black Girl, writes for Diouana a poetic internal monologue, through which she articulates her mounting frustrations with the pinched, sad world she inhabits: “What am I here? … Where are the people who live in this country?”

Meanwhile, a series of moving, interstitial flashbacks illustrate Diouana’s life in Dakar, including her putative romance with a young student (Momar Nar Sene), and her excitement at being specifically selected by the mother, a one-time Dakar resident, to work in France. Diouana’s anticipation of a new life prefigures the dreams of the young Senegalese couple in Djibril Diop Mambéty’s punky, colorful Touki Bouki (1973), another classic African film about postcolonial purgatory.

Though Black Girl traffics in bracing realism, it carries a powerful symbolic charge, embodied most clearly in the form of the traditional African mask which the naive Diouana casually gifts to her new employers on her first day. As the mask gazes impassively from its lofty perch in the living room, it seems to haunt the drab room with pre-independence ghosts, as well as evoking Frantz Fanon’s metaphor of the “mask” black people must wear in order to thrive in a white world. Eventually, it becomes the object through which Diouana’s eventual resistance is channelled. Finally, in the film’s thrilling, spine-tingling coda, the mask, now in new hands, is reconfigured as an anti-assimilationist totem, thrumming with the spirit of pro-African, anti-colonial resistance. In these last moments, a downbeat saga is transformed into a transcendent, defiant howl of hope.

Ashley Clark is a freelance film journalist and film programmer from London, based in New York. He writes for Sight & Sound and VICE, among others; and wrote the book Facing Blackness: Media and Minstrelsy in Spike Lee’s Bamboozled (The Critical Press). He curated the BAMcinématek series Space is the Place: Afrofuturism on Film and Behind The Mask: Bamboozled in Focus (both in 2015). Follow him on Twitter @_Ash_Clark.

Reprinted from April 2016 BAMbill.

In Context: Les Fêtes Vénitiennes

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Legendary conductor William Christie and his acclaimed early-music ensemble Les Arts Florissants explore the hedonistic side of the French Baroque with Les Fêtes Vénitiennes, a rarely staged opéra-ballet by André Campra. Context is everything, so get even closer to the show with this curated selection of related articles, interviews, and videos. After you've attended the show, let us know what you thought below and by posting on social media using #LesFêtesVénitiennes.

Program Notes

Coming soon!

Read

Article
"Campra's Festive Prologues & Entrées" (BAM blog)
When French Baroque opera needed a new direction in the wake of Louis XIV’s death, André Campra looked to the theater, and to Italy, for hedonistic inspiration.

Interview
BAM Blog Questionnaire: Petra Reinhardt of Les Fêtes Vénitiennes (BAM blog)
Costume designer Petra Reinhardt dishes on her research process, designing for performers and the practicality of Venetian footwear.

Article
“A Life in Music: William Christie”(The Guardian)
Christie has come a long way since his days of throwing together Bach performances in college.

Article
An Opera House for a Baroque Savant (BAM blog)
When conductor William Christie first came to BAM, he saw “a great white elephant, surrounded by little more than parking lots.” Once inside? “It was heaven.”

Watch & Listen

Video
“William Christie’s Musical Gardens” (YouTube)
The result of 30 years of daydreaming, Christie’s majestic garden is a pastiche of French and Italian styles.

Audio
Les Arts Florissants (Spotify)
Stream the early music group’s catalogue.

Feed
Ballet Scapino Rotterdam’s Instagram Feed (Instagram)
The wide-ranging company also maintains an active visual life.

Now your turn...

What did you think? What were your favorite moments from the staging and score? Will you forever associate Venice with the French baroque? Tell us what's on your mind in the comments below and on social media using #LesFêtesVénitiennes.

Henry V—Rebellion Broached

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Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro describes how Shakespeare’s Henry V paralleled the Earl of Essex’s attempt to curtail rebellion in 1599. Henry Vconcludes Shakespeare's Henriad, currently running in four segments as part of the RSC'sKing and Country: Shakespeare’s Great Cycle of Kings at the Harvey Theater through May 1. 

RSC ensemble in Henry V. Photo: Stephanie Berger

In the Epilogue to Henry IV, Part II, for the first and only time in his playwriting career, Shakespeare shared with audiences what he was planning to write next:
If you be not too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katharine of France. Where, for anything I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already ’a be killed with your hard opinions.
But as disappointed playgoers soon discovered, Sir John Falstaff would not reappear in Henry V: Will Kemp, the comic star for whom Shakespeare had created the role, quit the company, and Falstaff’s part was written out of the story. Henry V would evolve in other ways as well, especially in response to unfolding events.

Troubles and Revolts

During the early months of 1599, as Shakespeare was finishing the play (and with it, the four-part historical sequence that had begun with Richard II), England was mired in what would come to be called the Nine Years’ War in Ireland. The war had taken a disastrous turn the previous August, when a column of 3,500 English troops, hoping to relieve the Blackwater garrison near Armagh, were routed by Irish forces led by Hugh O’Neill. The English soldiers ran for their lives and “were for the most part put to the sword.” An emboldened O’Neill and his followers were determined to uproot the New English settlers, and in the months that followed disturbing reports reached London of “four hundred more throats cut in Ireland” and of “new troubles and revolts.”

RSC ensemble in Henry V. Photo: Stephanie Berger

An army would have to be mobilized to avenge the humiliating defeat and crush the rebellious Irish once and for all. The charismatic Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, was chosen by the Queen to lead the expeditionary force, 16,000 strong, plus cavalry, which assembled in the early afternoon of March 27 at Tower Hill before marching off to fight. But along with the patriotic cheers for Essex and his men there was also considerable grumbling. Since there was no standing army in Elizabethan England, fresh troops had to be constantly rounded up. Nearly 10,000 civilians had been conscripted for the Irish wars in 1598 alone; an additional 7,300 would be sent there in the first six months of 1599. Casualty rates were high and sickness rife; many never made it home.

Call for Troops

We tend to laugh nowadays at the recruitment scene in Henry IV, Part II, in which a pathetic group of potential soldiers are paraded before “Captain” Falstaff. Mouldy is old, Shadow slight, Wart tattered, and Feeble doddering (and too naive to understand that he must bribe his way out of serving). All are initially selected, save Wart, whom even Falstaff admits is unfit for service. Shadow is no less unsuitable, though Falstaff jokes, “we have a number of shadows fill up the muster book.” For Shakespeare’s playgoers, however, this painfully familiar scene—which dramatizes the bribery and rampant corruption that defined the Elizabethan military—would have registered as sardonic.

Some conscripts refused to embark for Ireland, including 200 Londoners who mutinied, refusing to go any further than Towcester. There may well have been widespread sympathy for such action taken by men who had been waylaid outside of churches, inns, and playhouses and packed off to Ireland, ill-fed and poorly trained and outfitted. One contemporary spoke of “the poor English” who “are half dead before they come there, for the very name of Ireland do break their hearts, it is now so grown to misery.” Another recorded a proverb at the time: “Better be hanged at home than die like dogs in Ireland.” The social friction generated by the seemingly endless calls for fresh troops would draw the attention of London’s playwrights, including Thomas Dekker. His dark comedy, The Shoemaker’s Holiday, also staged in 1599, vividly conveys the high price paid by conscripts torn from their families and communities.

The costly campaign was also unpopular with London’s merchants, who had to foot the bill for it through forced loans they feared would later be declared outright gifts and never repaid. London also had to deal with a refugee problem, as frightened and in some cases destitute settlers in Ireland started making their way back home. The sight of these refugees would have been demoralizing, as would their stories of the rebels’ atrocities.

RSC ensemble in Henry V. Photo: Stephanie Berger

It is hardly surprising, then, that the national preoccupation with Ireland seeps into Henry V, though for much of the play the allusions to the current crisis are fleeting, such as the offhand remarks about Irish kerns and bogs. When Gower, an English captain, speaks of a soldier who wears “a beard of the General’s cut,” his reference to the Earl of Essex’s distinctive square-cut beard—which collapses the distance between Henry V’s world and their own—would not have been lost upon Elizabethan playgoers. There are also glancing allusions to the kind of bitter conditions their conscripted relatives and neighbors were facing at that moment in Ireland, with “winter coming on and sickness growing / Upon our soldiers.”

Outside the Playhouse


Only in the play’s final act does Essex’s Irish campaign, long submerged, break the surface of the play: in the Chorus’ speech describing Henry V’s triumphant return to London. Briefly setting aside the make-believe world of theater and reminding audiences of what was happening outside of the playhouse—something he almost never did—Shakespeare invites his fellow Londoners to imagine the near future, when they will pour into London’s streets to welcome home from Ireland the Earl of Essex, “General of our gracious Empress” Queen Elizabeth:

But now behold,
In the quick forge and working-house of thought,How London doth pour out her citizens!
The mayor and all his brethren in best sort,
Like to the senators of th’antique Rome,
With the plebeians swarming at their heels,
Go forth and fetch their conqu’ring Caesar in:
As by a lower but loving likelihood,
Were now the General of our gracious empress,
As in good time he may, from Ireland coming,
Bringing rebellion broachèd on his sword,
How many would the peaceful city quit,
To welcome him?

—Chorus, Act V

A Going-to-War Play

Those seeking to pinpoint Shakespeare’s political views in Henry V will always be disappointed. Shakespeare resists revelling either in reflexive patriotism or in a critique of nationalistic wars, though the play contains elements of both. Henry V succeeds and frustrates because it consistently refuses to adopt a single voice or point of view about military adventurism—past and present. Shakespeare was aware that on some deep level, as their brothers, husbands, and sons were being shipped off to fight in Ireland, Elizabethans craved a play that reassuringly reminded them of their heroic, martial past. What better subject than the famous victories of Henry V? The siege at Harfleur would be a triumph, compensating for the defeat of besieged Blackwater. But Shakespeare also knew that his audiences— already weary of military call-ups and unnerved by terrible reports from settlers and soldiers returning from Ireland—were, by the eve of Essex’s departure, of two minds about the campaign. Henry V thus takes its place among the many stories circulating in London at this anxious time —from the gossip at court and in the taverns to the official sermons and royal pronouncements justifying the imminent military expedition—and yet somehow manages to encompass them all. It wasn’t a pro-war play or an anti-war play, but a going-to-war play.

Antony Sher and Alex Hassell in Henry IV. Photo: Richard Termine


Fraught Politics

Essex’s longed-for triumph never happened; Hugh O’Neill was the better tactician and Essex’s Irish campaign failed. He returned to England without Queen Elizabeth’s permission, and burst in upon her unannounced. He was put under house arrest and it would be the last time he would see her. Shakespeare’s words about Essex returning from Ireland “with rebellion broached on his sword” would take on an unintended ironic meaning when in February 1601, Essex led a group of 300 armed men into the city, hoping to generate popular support for his cause; the treasonous uprising was quickly suppressed and Essex tried and beheaded. By then, Henry Vhad already been rushed into print, the quarto edition sanitized of any mention of “the general of our gracious Empress.”

On the eve of that uprising, Essex’s followers had approached Shakespeare’s company and paid them to perform Richard II at the Globe. Like King Richard, Queen Elizabeth was a childless ruler who engaged in benevolences (a punishing form of taxation), and had saddled the nation with a costly Irish war. Queen Elizabeth saw the unflattering parallels between herself and her deposed predecessor all too clearly, and was reported to have said: “I am Richard the Second, know ye not that?”

In the aftermath of the failed uprising, Shakespeare’s company was called in to explain why they had staged “the killing of Richard II.” They pleaded ignorance and were fortunate to escape punishment. But the episode reminds us of how powerfully Shakespeare’s Histories responded to, and were implicated in, the fraught politics of the time.

The RSC's King and Country: Shakespeare’s Great Cycle of Kings plays the Harvey Theater through May 1. 

James Shapiro, Professor of English at Columbia University, is author of A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599, Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?, and the recent The Year of Lear: 1606.

BAM Blog Questionnaire: Petra Reinhardt of Les Fêtes Vénitiennes

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Les Arts Florissants explore the hedonistic side of the French Baroque with the rarely staged opéra-ballet Les Fêtes Vénitiennes, coming to the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House April 14—17. Gamblers, carnies, gypsies, and jilted lovers—baring lots of leg via scanty updates on period dress by designer Petra Reinhardt. We spoke with Reinhardt about her research process, designing for performers and the practicality of Venetian footwear.




How did you come to work with director Robert Carsen and scenic designer Radu Boruzescu? How did you collaborate with them on the costumes for Les Fêtes Vénitiennes?

I was working with Robert Carsen on a Magic Flute at Opera Bastille in Paris. At the final dress rehearsal, I had the honor to meet Radu and his wife Miruna, who had worked with Robert on many productions. I was immediately drawn to Miruna as an artist and human being, and after that one meeting, knew that she was an incredible person.

Miruna was engaged to design the costumes for Les Fêtes Vénitiennes, and talked to me about it. As I have a huge library about Venitian art and culture, and have lived in Italy and know Venice very well, I offered Miruna my books for her research. Sadly, Miruna passed away a few months later in 2014.

What was your process for designing the costumes for Les Fêtes Vénitiennes?

Such a huge project with historical costumes means designing many, many drafts before you and the director decide on the right approach to create the characters. I think I did around 200 drafts before getting to a point. It took me about four months to create the costume concept. The process afterwards meant workshops, researching costumes to buy, researching fabrics, implementation, etc, which takes another 5 months. Each production takes around 9 months—it’s like a baby!

Most of the costumes were produced in Opéra Comique in Paris. All the main characters (singers and dancers) are measured and made there. For the mass scenes, I bought beautiful single pieces in Roman costume shops. The annual Carnevale di Venezia creates a great demand for Venitian costumes, but there are very few good commercial materials available there. I had the fortune of finding some beautiful old pieces from cinema productions in Roman costume shops. These pieces were re-assembled, re-constructed, and re-fitted in the wonderful costume department of Opéra Comique. It’s a magical place!

Each costume has interesting details. I think a costume works if it’s not perfect. I like to work with the person who wears the costume—I like to enter in the personality of the artist. To use his physical and psychological reality is what I like most during the fittings. To create a personality. A costume is boring if it‘s a copy from a costume book! We have costumes from the Renaissance to the late Baroque period in Les Fêtes Vénitiennes. I included a lot of very modern details in the costumes, which you don’t realize in the entire mood, but it makes the general view interesting.

What are some of your favorite details in these costumes?

The collaboration with the dancers from Scapino Ballet was very interesting. In the scene in which they are La Suite de la Folie, they represent prostitutes and wear costumes with the façon and line from the 16th century, inspired by what Venetian prostitutes wore in that period. As in that very famous period for prostitution in Venice, they wear "zattere," the high shoes with plateaus. I made those shoes modern, and it works.


These shoes were used for high water, but were also as a consequence of a law created by a Venetian municipal authority lawyer, because his wife did too much shopping. With those high shoes she couldn‘t walk very well and hence wouldn‘t damage her husband’s wallet! We used the male dancers as they are, with their beards, hairy legs, and with 16th-century ladies costumes. I think it’s a very strong moment in that show.

Another interesting detail I discovered during my research: I found some pictures of very short Justaucorps (the male waistcoats or jackets of the baroque period). I could not understand why those short Justaucorps would exist—normally their length is below the knee. Then I found in a book about Venetian history that the waiters of some aristocratic Venetian families had those short Justaucorps because they moved better in the gondolas, as their knees were free...I used this weird detail for our waiters in the show.

What are some of the unique challenges of designing costumes for dancers and singers?

Singers and dancers are like delicate instruments. I always try to make them feel comfortable in addition to the technical necessities for movements, etc. To go onstage and sing or dance is a huge effort and challenge, which we costume designers should respect. A good costume is a bad costume if the singer or dancer feels uncomfortable or unhappy with it. Therefore we have fittings where we can be responsive to the sensibilities and needs of the artists. Obviously sometimes you have to fight for an idea and to convince the artist that this is exactly the right choice. Fortunately it‘s never happened to me that a singer or dancer refused to wear a costume.

What inspires you?

Life! The most exciting part of designing costumes is to tell the story the director wants to tell via the characters. Working for opera is different than working for cinema or theater. You have the important fact of the music, which is the first inspiration. Everything is written there, but you can interpret it in so many different ways. Working on Les Fêtes Vénitiennes, my inspiration was books. There is so much literature about Venice, so much art history, it’s hard not to be inspired. If we talk about the most famous and known ones: Pierto Longhi, Francesco Guardi, Canaletto, and so many other painters who describe Venice like nothing else. If you read Giacomo Casanova’s memoirs, everything is there.

As the aristocratic families in Venice conserved lots of libraries, which today are accessible to everybody, it is rather easy to get information about the period. I found during my research some interesting collections of Album Amicorum, which were a kind of precursor to Facebook. The aristocracy in the 15th century and later the middle class in the 16th century used to collect designs of colored drawings of their friends and places they visited. They had little boxes and travelled with them, collecting portraits or general illustrations of the friends they met. These pictures were not created by great artists, but by normal craftsmen, and are interesting as they describe normal life. The draft of La Suite de la Folie is based on an illustration of a Venitian prostitute in an Album Amicorum of Venice from 1547:

Les Fêtes Vénitiennes comes to the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House April 14—17.

Dalí in New York

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By Anna Troester

Salvador Dalí made his mark across 20th-century Europe and the US with his unique body of work and eccentric personality. Best known for his Surrealist paintings—at once evocative, dreamlike, and bizarre—Dalí immersed himself in writing, sculpture, and graphic arts, as well as architecture, jewelry, and set design. He collaborated with well-known artists in the film, theater, photography, and fashion worlds, including Alfred Hitchcock, Luis Buñuel, Elsa Schiaparelli, Christian Dior, and Walt Disney.

The Spanish artist spent eight years in New York City during the 1940s, where he engaged with new ideas, worked with high-profile American artists and institutions, and heavily influenced a city that was growing into an international art center. During this time, Dalí collaborated with the choreographer Leonide Massine on the ballet Mad Tristan, inspired by Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. A replica of the artist’s striking backdrop is featured in Daniele Finzi Pasca’s La Verità, a physical theater tribute to Dalí himself, at the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House May 4—7. After the jump, peruse some of Dalí’s activities in New York of the 1940s, with an emphasis on the theater.

Performing Arts

Dalí worked extensively in stage design for the ballet, participating in a number of international collaborations with companies including the Ballet Russe de Montecarlo, Ballet Espagnol, and Ballet International. Responding to new opportunities to craft experimental design for the ballet, Dalí joined the likes of modern artists Pablo Picasso, Leon Bakst, and Isamu Noguchi in this pursuit.

Dalí collaborated with choreographer Leonide Massine on three of his ballets: Bacchanale (1939), Labyrinth (1941), and Mad Tristan (1944), all of which premiered at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. For Bacchanale, in addition to an evocative Surrealist backdrop, Dalí also provided a libretto. For the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo performances of Labyrinth, Dalí designed an ominous decor featuring a massive bust, and designed the costumes and wrote the libretto based on the Theseus and Ariadne myth. Mad Tristan was inspired by Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, and a replica of Dalí’s backdrop for this production is featured in Daniele Finzi Pasca’s La Verità; the original was used in performances for several years.

Dalí at work. Photo: Formidable Magazine
Dalí collaborated on the 1944 productions of El Café de Chinitas by choreographer Argentinitas and Sentimental Colloquy with choreography by George Balanchine and André Eglevsky. For Ballet Espagnol’s 1949 production of The Three-Cornered Hat, which premiered at the Ziegfield Theater, his scenery and costumes complemented the Spanish dances choreographed by Ana Maria. Dalí’s theatrical collaborations for the ballet continued into the 1960’s, spanning over 20 years from his work on Bacchanale (1939) in New York to work on Maurice Béjart’s Gala (1961) in Venice.

He kept busy in many other genres; here are highlights:

Painting

MoMA showcased a major retrospective of Dalí’s work, which opened in November 1941. Dalí exhibited a solo show at the gallery of M. Knoedler and Company in Manhattan.

Film

Alfred Hitchcock sought out Dalí to create dream sequences for his film Spellbound (1945).

Photography

Dalí collaborated with photographers Man Ray, Brassai, Cecil Beaton, and Philippe Halsman. With Halsman he produced the Dalí Atomica Series (1948), which was published in LIFE magazine and inspired by his in-process painting Leda Atómica (1949).

Dalí in his Dalí Atomica Series (1948).
Writing

Salvador Dalí wrote continuously during his time in New York. His novel, Hidden Faces (1944), tells the story of the loves and travails of a group of wealthy characters in 1930s Europe, against the backdrop of the rise of Hitler. The book includes Dalí’s own illustrations. He also wrote an autobiography, The Secret Life of Dalí (1942), and a nonfiction work, 50 Secrets of Magic (1948).

Jewelry

From 1941 to 1970, Dalí crafted 39 pieces of jewelry with the line originating in New York. The collection, DALÍ·JOIES, is currently on permanent view at the Dalí Theatre-Museum of Figueres in Spain.

Fashion

Dalí worked with several fashion designers in his lifetime, contributing to collaborations such as this Gilbert Adrian dress (1947) for which Dalí created the textile.

Adrian Gilbert dress (1947). Photo: The Met
Anna Troester is the Marketing Assistant at BAM.

La Verità comes to the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House May 4—7, and great seats are still available.

In Context: Caetano Veloso & Gilberto Gil

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Two major artists of the 20th century—Caetano Veloso, arguably Brazil’s greatest contemporary songwriter, and Gilberto Gil, the renowned Brazilian guitarist and singer who led the 1960s Tropicália movement with Veloso and others—come together April 20 & 21 for a celebration of music and friendship. Context is everything, so get even closer to the show with this curated selection of related articles, interviews, and videos. After you've attended the show, let us know what you thought below and by posting on social media using #DoisAmigosUmSeculoDeMusica.

Program Notes

Coming soon!

Read

Article
“Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso in London”(The Guardian)
When 1960s Brazilian dictatorship decided they were a threat, Veloso and Gil played a concert to raise money for plane tickets and fled.

Interview
Gilberto Gil
The Brazilian songwriter on growing up in Bahia, cyber culture, and activism.

Article
“Dinner with Caetano Veloso” (TheArtsDesk.com)
A writer visits Veloso at his Bahia home.

Article
“Tropicalia, Agora!”(New York Times)
Adventures in Brazilian music, via David Byrne and Banana Republic.

Watch & Listen

Video
Veloso and Gil in Paris (YouTube)
Old friends play the Palais des Congrès. From June 2015.

Video
Caetano Veloso in Talk To Her (YouTube)
Veloso sings “Cucurrucucu Paloma (Hable Con Ella)” in a scene from Pedro Almodovar’s film.

Video
On Tropicalia and More (BBC)
Veloso and Gil discuss the Tropicalia movement, the Beatles, the state of Brazil, and more.

Now your turn...

What did you think? Favorite song/moment from the concert? Any surprises? Are you filled with the revolutionary spirit of Tropicália? Tell us what's on your mind in the comments below and by posting on social media using #DoisAmigosUmSeculoDeMusica.

Embodying Shakespeare

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Last week, Royal Shakespeare Company Associate Director Owen Horsley led a workshop on Shakespeare’s history plays in conjunction with the RSC’s presentation of King and Country this season. Horsley was joined by company actors Alex Hassell and Leigh Quinn to guide participants through exercises in verse, text, and movement with the aim of building confidence in approaching classical text. We sent BAM's Humanities Intern Nora Tjossem to attend the workshop and learn more. Below, she reports on her findings.

Photo: Nora Tjossem


By Nora Tjossem

The jitters of working with the Royal Shakespeare Company evaporated when Leigh Quinn began a warmup called “Playstation.” Her distinctive golden curls bounced as she did a modified running man and propelled us through various moves: Jump up if you get a golden star! Drop to the ground and do a stationary army crawl to go under a bridge! Break into double-time running-in-place if you get a fireball!

The RSC workshop Embodying Shakespeare at Mark Morris Dance Center lasted three hours and felt like 30 minutes. Beginning with acting games (“Playstation” was augmented with other serious exercises such as “Clappy-Clappy Sametime”), actors Leigh Quinn and Alex Hassell joined forces with Associate Director Owen Horsley to lead a group of 25 through the process of approaching Shakespearean text.

The three company members are as smooth an ensemble offstage as they are on. Owen Horsley, associate director for the RSC’s King and Country: Shakespeare’s Great Cycle of Kings and a self-proclaimed geek for verse, took the helm, leading us through bits of text from each play in the Henriad—Richard II, Henry IV Part I& II, and Henry V—while Hassell and Quinn chimed in with their own advice and examples. They stressed that although the RSC is viewed as the preeminent Shakespeare company, there is no single “RSC way” of approaching text.

Paramount, however, was the emphasis given to ensemble mentality. For the first hour, we were given no text at all. Instead, Horsley directed the energy of the room as a whole, urging us to let go of the impulses that led us through the spaces as individual performers and to instead follow the forces in the room—the collective speed, spatial relationships, and focus.

He walked us through the space, literally measuring out feet to get a sense of the iambic pentameter—stepping through the room to the 10-beat line that many grade school students encountering Shakespeare learn and too easily forget when exploring a dense monologue or scene.
One, TWO, three, FOUR, five, SIX, seven, EIGHT, nine, TEN.
These steps were repeated over and over, the rhythm of a line of verse entering our bodies as we roamed the room; Hassell, Horsley, and Quinn chanting and marching right alongside us.

Then came the text, for which we were given some helpful tips:
- Take a look at the verse. Read these lines out loud with that stubborn iambic rhythm, walking as you do so. Watch for when your steps falter, and there seem to be extra syllables or misplaced stresses. These will be the spots to pay extra attention.
- Try out the vowels. Say the lines aloud using only the vowel sounds. What do you hear? Is it one long, lamenting “O” as in Lady Percy’s speech from Henry IV, Part II, begging her husband not to go to war?
- Likewise, the consonants. Perhaps there are a lot of hissing “S” sounds or clattering “K”s. What might it mean if your character is spitting out a number of consecutive consonants?
- Read only the last word of each line. What do you get from the list of these words through Richard II’s monologue—“speak; epitaphs; eyes; earth; wills...”—that could inform the rest of the text?
“Do it the fake way first, so then you can make it real,” Horsley said.

Hassell, who takes on the monolithic task of playing Prince Hal in both Henry IV, Part I & II and King Henry in the eponymous Henry V, is extraordinarily adept at lifting verse from the page and embodying it. “It’s all there in the verse,” he said. And while this could have been a flippant phrase, for the RSC it is demonstrably true. He adds no unnecessary flourish, takes on no extra weightiness in his voice, and never leans too far outward or inward in his portrayal of the roguish prince. Instead, he does the remarkable job of playing the text.

Alex Hassell in action. Photo: Stephanie Berger


As in ballet or music, the fundamentals are not to be learned once and discarded. Instead, the constant return to verse, meter, sounds, and arcs of thought and phrase all loop back into one another. In the center of our circle, Hassell worked his way through Prince Hal’s speech on his father’s deathbed, which is full of tricky twists and turns of thought midline, stomping through each line and chopping with his arms where each sentence ends. Using the full force of his body, he gave us a glimpse into how these fundamentals inform his performance around the corner at the BAM Harvey Theater through May 1.

“How do you make text the priority without holding it sacrosanct?” I asked Hassell, mid-iambic stomp through the studio.

“Well, I do think the text is sacred,” he grinned, “but lots and lots of practice.”

The next morning, as the BAM Education department led hundreds of high schoolers into the theater to see Henry V, I took my seat to watch the lights dim on Oliver Ford Davies, emerging as Chorus to introduce the play. Every shift of thought was grounded in the verse’s meter. Every character onstage was focused in relation to the others. Every revelation appeared for the first time.

“The text isn’t sacred, it’s modern,” Quinn had delightedly exclaimed.

And somehow, watching King and Country, it is both: sacred and modern, verse and prose, legendary and relatable. The RSC approaches the impossible, sublime task of being as great as the words themselves—of embodying Shakespeare.

The King and Country Cycle plays through May 1, and tickets are still available to Henry IV Parts I & II, as well as Henry V.

Nora Tjossem is BAM's Humanities Intern.

In Context: Youssou NDOUR

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The Dakar-born singer and composer returns to BAM May 20 & 21 with his longtime band, Le Super Étoile de Dakar, and a tribute to Senegalese drummer Doudou N'Diaye Rose, who passed away last year. Context is everything, so get even closer to the show with this curated selection of related articles, sounds and videos. After you've attended the show, let us know what you thought below and by posting on social media using #YoussouNDOUR.

Program Notes

Coming soon!

Read

Article
“Africa's First Music Download Service Launches in Senegal”(The Guardian)
NDOUR is one of over 200 musicians whose music is now streamable throughout Africa.

Obituary
Doudou N’Diaye Rose(The Guardian)
The venerable percussionist was praised by Unesco as a “human living treasure” for his role in preserving Senegalese culture.

Article
“A Song and a Prayer”(The Guardian)
A rich profile of the international music star, humanitarian, and one-time politician.

Article
“The Singer Who Changed His Tune”(The Guardian)
NDOUR ran for the Senegalese presidency in 2012.

Watch & Listen

Video
Youssou NDOUR, “Yaakar” (YouTube)
NDOUR and Le Super Étoile de Dakar pay homage to late drummer Doudou Ndiaye Rose.

Video
“Souvenirs,” Youssou NDOUR (YouTube)
NDOUR takes a selfie in this recent video.

Video
Peter Gabriel - In Your Eyes (YouTube)
NDOUR sang backup on Gabriel’s classic track.

Video
Doudou N'Diaye Rose Orchestra (YouTube)
The posthumous honoree of NDOUR’s show, Senegal’s best-known percussionist leads this tight West African drumming orchestra.

Audio
“Youssou NDOUR: The Voice of Senegal”(NPR)
All Songs Considers profiles “a musical chameleon capable of a seductive whisper or a siren's cry.”

Now your turn...

What did you think? Were you familiar with Doudou N'Diaye Rose before the show? Transported by NDOUR’s soaring tenor? Tell us what's on your mind in the comments below and by posting on social media using #YoussouNDOUR.

Gregory Doran on King and Country: Shakespeare’s Great Cycle of Kings

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In a rich conversation with eminent Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro, Royal Shakespeare Company Artistic Director Gregory Doran shed light on the four plays in King and Country: Shakespeare’s Great Cycle of Kings. Below are highlights from their April 7 talk.

Doran shares the greatest piece of advice he’s received as a director and leads us into his personal approach to directing and performing Shakespeare.



After taking the plays to China, Doran realized that the story takes precedent over the tie to British history. But this doesn’t stop Doran and the Royal Shakespeare Company from hiding a subtle reference in the heart of the Henriad for astute historians in the audience to pick up on…



Bringing these four histories (Richard II, Henry IV Part I, Henry IV Part II, and Henry V) together is an enormous feat, and wasn’t the original staging of each production. Gathering them in sequence at BAM reveals new discoveries even for Doran, three years after the premiere of Richard II.



Star power is not the name of the game for the Royal Shakespeare Company. More than anything, an appreciation for the ensemble has led Doran forward throughout his tenure at the RSC.



The King and Country Cycle plays through May 1.
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