A Man For All Seasons
Robert Bolt’s critically acclaimed play A Man for All
Seasons investigates both the royal rift and the very personal
conflict between King Henry VIII and Sir Thomas More over
Henry's break with the Church of Rome in order to divorce
his wife Catherine of Aragon. First staged in 1960 at the
Globe Theatre in London, it was voted New York's Best Foreign
Play in 1962. In 1966 the play was adapted by Bolt for the
screen and the result was an Academy Award-winning film (Best
Picture, Best Director, Best Actor) starring Paul Scofield,
who had played the role of Sir Thomas More on the London stage.
A Man for All Seasons is a lean, eloquent psychodrama based
on a world-changing historical event...
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Quake
 In
the fall of 2002, McLennan Theatre's production of Melanie
Marnich's Quake advanced from the Texas festival held at Texas
A&M University, Commerce to the Region VI festival (Texas,
New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana) hosted by TCU in
February. The initial pool of 65 shows from the five states
of Region VI was narrowed to a group of 23. These 23 productions
were scrutinized by a panel of 13 committee members, who selected
7 shows to be performed at TCU in Fort Worth, including Quake
. There are 8 regions in the nation, but national selections
are based on the total production pool rather than selection
of one winner from each site...
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Richard III
 Although
we tend to think of William Shakespeare as the brightest star
in the firmament of great writers, his plays have, in fact,
been cut, revised, mangled and, during some epochs, completely
replaced by other playwrights' versions over the past 400
years. What follows is a chronological stage history of Richard
III as produced in England over three centuries. This chronology
highlights the actors, producers, designers, and scripts for
which we have records--official documents, diaries, playbills,
prompt books, etc.
Richard III is a particularly interesting script to study
because it was so popular with many of the finest actors of
the nineteenth century--particularly as a debut piece for
men. As you read, remember that our records for the nineteenth
century are far more extensive than those from earlier periods...
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The Cripple of Inishmaan
 The
setting for Martin McDonagh's play is a real place with a
rich and fascinating history. Inishmaan, population 150, is
one of three Aran Islands located thirty miles west of Galway.
Situated between Inishmore ("Big Island") and Inisheer
("East Island"), Inishmaan ("Middle Island")
is a rocky, isolated landmass little more than three miles
wide. Its inhabitants still speak Irish as well as the more
predominant national language, English. In fact, as Terry
Eagleton suggests in his new book The Truth about the Irish,
"Over the years, the Aran Islands have attracted as many
visiting anthropologists as the Amazon basin. In fact some
of the Aran folk used to wonder if the world beyond their
islands was populated entirely by linguists and anthropologists.
" Early in the twentieth century, Eagleton explains,
"many ardent Irish nationalists made their way from middle-class
Dublin, notebooks and Irish dictionaries in hand, to savor
this unspoilt bit of old Ireland. The islanders found it hard
to give these enthusiasts their full attention, intent as
they were on how to get off these [expletive deleted] rocks
to a decent life on the mainland...
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