As Fresh Air said, today is Mel Brooks day. Tonight is the premiere of Mel Brooks: Make a Noise, part of the American Masters series on PBS (check local listings). It will be available on DVD May 21 from Shout Factory.
Last week, 92Y presented the first New York screening of it and to celebrate, Mel joined us via Skype and was interviewed with Susan Stroman, director of the hit Broadway musical The Producers, and Robert Trachtenberg, the director of the PBS biography, by Joy Behar. Watch!
Nice photo of Benjamin Verdery at WNYC’s Soundcheck studios just about 30 minutes ago. Don’t worry if you missed it, they will rebroadcast the segment on May 22 at 9 pm!
You can see him at person at 92Y on May 23.
From the Poetry Center Archive—Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood
To begin at the beginning …
It was sixty years ago today—May 14, 1953—that Dylan Thomas’s play Under Milk Wood had its premiere on the stage of 92Y’s Kaufmann Concert Hall, with Thomas himself reading a number of roles (1st Voice and Reverend Eli Jenkins, among them). To celebrate the anniversary, we’d like to share this recording of Thomas reading the play’s opening monologue.
Some great photos from our green room last night, for An Evening with Sidney Poitier. Pictured in photo at left is Mark Ethan, Sidney Poitier and Annette Insdorf. Pictured at right is Sidney Poitier and Susan Engel, 92Y Director of Lectures. Here’s another photo from last night with Sherrod Small and Mr. Poitier, and another with his book publicist Michelle Jasmine. A lot of people took photos.
And just because it’s one of the coolest photos ever, here’s a great snap of Sidney Poitier, Tony Curtis, Sammy Davis Jr, & Jack Lemmon.
For those interested, tonight we’ll be live casting Paul Farmer with Claudia Dreifus on Haiti.
To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it’s about, but the music the words make.
—
Truman Capote (via davidkendall)
Perhaps this will be music to your ears: Truman Capote reading Breakfast At Tiffany’s at 92Y in April 1963.
Dancers with Tyron Entertainment currently rehearsing in our dance studio. (via)
If you’re a choreographer, or know someone who is, learn about our Harkness Space Grant Program.
Less than 36 hours left to enter for your chance to win a Grand Prize that will have you meeting Jennifer Hudson at our Spring Gala, watching her perform, and having dinner & drinks on us. Enter now.
The Tokyo String Quartet has finished their last concert at 92Y tonight, to an appreciative full house. In July, they will retire an extraordinary 44-year career.
The Tokyo String Quartet first performed at 92Y in 1977. It became the 92Y quartet-in-residence in 2003. In those years, they played 31 concerts and 101 works by 20 composers to thousands of fans. Tonight we bid farewell to this remarkable ensemble. Together, we thank the Tokyo for the enlightenment, insight and sheer pleasure they have brought into our lives. We look forward to welcoming them back to 92Y as individuals and friends in the years to come.
(Photo of the Tokyo String Quarter rehearsing at 92Y for the last time. May 11, 2013.)
“I had hardly begun to read
I asked how can you ever be sure
that what you write is really
any good at all and he said you can’t
you can’t you can never be sure
you die without knowing
whether anything you wrote was any good
if you have to be sure don’t write”
—W. S. Merwin from “Berryman”
Upon the publication of his Collected Poems by the Library of America, Merwin is making a rare New York appearance and will be coming out on stage at the 92Y Poetry Center any minute. (8 pm!) We’ll be live tweeting. Merwin will be interviewed by J. D. McClatchy and also read from his work.
NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel used a world map to take an audience at 92Y through all the global hot spots Americans should care about. Watch the video on 92Y’s American Conversation. Engel was here on April 25 with Allen Grubman, senior partner of Grubman, Indursky, Shire & Meiselas P.C.
