biography theater

Hardcover. NY, Crown, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 644 pages, b&w illustrations. After a protracted squabble over private papers with the playwright's estate, Leverich delivers this hefty first volume of a projected two-volume life of Tennessee Williams (1911-1983). In it, Leverich, who produced several of Williams's plays and calls himself Williams's "chosen biographer", covers the years through 1945, when The Glass Menagerie opened on Broadway. Treated are Williams's youth in Mississippi and St. Louis; the college years at the universities of Missouri and Iowa; bumming around (but always writing) in New Orleans and Greenwich Village; the disaster of his first Broadway play (it closed in Boston); script writing, or avoiding it, at MGM's Hollywood mill; and, finally, the evolution of Menagerie, a wonderfully detailed and dramatic case history in itself. Leverich's overworked conceit, which he restates at intervals, is that this is the life of Tom Williams, a "repressed puritan" poet, who in time created a more flamboyant public persona called Tennessee. A few matters are set straight. Leverich maintains his subject's active homosexual life started in his late 20s, later than Williams stated in his memoirs, and that his sister's infamous lobotomy came later than his mother claimed. Although the accumulation of information is impressive, the lower Leverich keeps his own profile and editorial commentary the better his book is, which means it is at its best when it simply reproduces Williams's sporadically kept journal. If you believe that all the details of a life are but preparation for a single event, in this case, the opening of a remarkable play, this is an impressively argued biography.

Hardcover. Gainesville FL, University Press of Florida, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 267 pages, b&w photos. Biography of the Russian ballet dancer and teacher Agrippina Vaganova (1879-1951).

Hardcover. NY, George H. Doran, 1st, 1915, Hardcover, black cloth covers with gilt title, top edge gilt. 523 pages, b&w photos. The author wrote this book to depict and commemorate "leading representatives of the Stage". He writes about: William Warren, laura Keene, Matilda Heron, Lester Wallack, James W. Wallace, Mark Smith, Edward Adams, Henry J. Montague; Edwin Booth, Augustin Daly, Henry Irving, Johnston Forbes-Robertson, Edward H. Sothern and Julia Marlowe. Index. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. NY, HarperCollins, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 48 pages illustrated in color by Aliki. With her characteristically sprightly words and pictures, Aliki brings Shakespeare's life, times, and legacy to life in this highly acclaimed information-packed treasury that is truly for readers of all ages. This nonfiction picture book is an excellent choice to share during homeschooling, in particular for children ages 6 to 8. It's a fun way to learn to read and as a supplement for activity books for children From Hamlet to Romeo and Juliet to A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare's celebrated works have touched people around the world. Aliki combines literature, history, biography, archaeology, and architecture in this richly detailed and meticulously researched introduction to Shakespeare's world-his life in Elizabethan times, the theater world, and the Globe, for which he wrote his plays. Then she brings history full circle to the present-day reconstruction of the Globe theater.