The Voice Teacher as Shakespearean Collaborator: Margaret Carrington and John Barrymore

1997 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-158
Author(s):  
Michael A. Morrison
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Richard Iii ◽  
American Theatre ◽  
Voice Teacher ◽  
Vocal Quality ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Scholarly Attention

In the annals of staged Shakespeare, John Barrymore, Arthur Hopkins, and Robert Edmond Jones have been much honored for their landmark productions of Richard III and Hamlet, first seen in New York during the 1919– 20 and 1922–23 seasons. Another collaborator in these revivals, however, has received little scholarly attention: Margaret Carrington, a Canadian-born voice teacher who contributed significantly to the success of these productions by “remaking” Barrymore's voice. Although reviews of Barrymore's performances in the years preceding his Shakespearean debut often mentioned his “monotonous” vocal quality, the result of his studies with Carrington was a vocal instrument of extraordinary range and flexibility. As Heywood Broun remarked in 1923: “Someone ought to write a tale about Barrymore called ‘The Story of a Voice.’ It is one of the most amazing adventures in our theatre. Here was a particularly pinched utterance distinctly marred by slipshod diction. Today it is among the finest voices in the American theatre.”

The Achievements of the Douglass Company in North America: 1758–1774

1982 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
David D. Mays
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
North America ◽  
West Indies ◽  
Theatre History ◽  
The West ◽  
American Theatre ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Theatre History ◽  
A Company

On Monday, October 16, 1758., Hugh Gaine reported a novelty. “Friday last,” he told his readers in the New-York Mercury, “arrived here from the West Indies, a Company of Comedians; some Part of which were here in the Year 1753.” This brief notice, which went on to assure its readers that the company had “an ample Certificate of their Private as well as publick Qualifications,” marks the beginning of the most significant event in American theatre history: the establishment of the professional theatre on this continent. The achievements of the Company of Comedians during its sixteen-year residence in North America are virtually without parallel in the history of the theatre, and have not received sufficient recognition by historians and scholars.

Channelling the dead: A conversation on Desdemona with Tina Benko

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentina Rapetti
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
African American ◽  
Toni Morrison ◽  
York City ◽  
Nobel Laureate ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
American Theatre ◽  
Broad Variety ◽  
Character Building

Tina Benko is an American stage, screen and television actress who has steadily trodden the Broadway boards for twenty years while starring in films and TV series and teaching acting and movement in New York City. An intensely focused and versatile performer, Benko has played in a broad variety of genres, ranging from screwball and Shakespearean comedies to realistic Russian, Scandinavian and American plays. In this interview, she discusses the factors that attracted her to drama and theatre, her acting training and approach to character-building, and theatre as a space for healing and reconciliation as she experienced it while working in Desdemona (2012), a cross-cultural theatre adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Othello staged by American theatre and opera director Peter Sellars, with texts by African American Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, and music and lyrics by Malian singer-songwriter Rokia Traoré.

The Voice Teacher as Spiritual Director

Liturgy ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 79-87
Author(s):  
Isabella Bates
Keyword(s):  
Voice Teacher ◽  
Spiritual Director ◽  
The Voice

INHERITING THE WIND: A PERSONAL VIEW OF THE CURRENT CRISIS IN THEATRE HIGHER EDUCATION IN NEW YORK

2011 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marvin Carlson
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York State ◽  
Central Position ◽  
State University ◽  
Personal View ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
American Theatre ◽  
Cornell University ◽  
The Public ◽  
The University

It is no secret, unhappily, that the study of theatre in the colleges and universities of this country is a discipline under siege, but the severity of the problems received strong confirmation in New York State this fall when two of the most distinguished and long-established (over a century in both cases) programs in the country were, with little warning, faced with draconian cuts or outright extinction. The fact that one, the state University of Albany, was the flagship school of the public system, and the other, Cornell University, was one of the state's most distinguished private institutions, suggests the scope and impact of these actions. At Albany, four other programs are being terminated along with theatre—Classics, Russian, Spanish, and French—while at Cornell the extent of the severe cuts imposed on the theatre program—almost a quarter of the total budget of the department (which also shelters dance and film)—are being suffered by no other program in the university. The prominence of these two schools in a state that has long claimed a central position in American theatre makes them particularly significant symbolically of a discipline in crisis, and this has impelled me to engage in serious and sometimes painful reflections on that discipline, the basis of the present essay.

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