#r; THE CALL OF DIANA { the thorn }

[quitethepirategal]

Tag Fix  ~  { 4 / 8 }  ~  ship tags  { a }

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🍉 Books for Read Palestine Week 2024 [ Nov 29 - Dec 5 ]

✨ This guide will no doubt get hidden, given the topic, so please help me by sharing this!

❓What are you reading this week?

🍉 Educate and empathize! Here are 82 books you can read for Read Palestine Week! I've included 26 queer books for those of you who #readqueerallyear as well. Please read these books to learn more about the Palestinian experience. Shukran (thank you)!

✨ Poetry 🍉 Enemy of the Sun - (ed) Edmund Ghareeb and Naseer Aruri 🍉 A Mountainous Journey - Fadwa Tuqan 🍉 So What - Taha Muhammad Ali 🍉 Affiliation - Mira Mattar 🍉 The Butterfly's Burden - Mahmoud Darwish 🍉 Born Palestinian, Born Black & The Gaza Suite - Suheir Hammad 🍉 Breaking Poems - Suheir Hammad 🍉 In the Presence of Absence - Mahmoud Darwish 🍉 Rifqa - Mohammed el-Kurd 🍉 My Voice Sought the Wind - Susan Abulhawa 🍉 Blood Orange - Yaffa 🏳️‍🌈 🍉 To All the Yellow Flowers - Raya Tuffaha 🏳️‍🌈 🍉 Before the Next Bomb Drops - Remi Kanazi 🍉 Birthright - George Abraham 🏳️‍🌈 🍉 Tent Generations - Various 🍉 Who is Owed Springtime - Rasha Abdulhadi 🏳️‍🌈 🍉 The Twenty-Ninth Year - Hala Alyan 🏳️‍🌈 🍉 Some Things Never Leave You - Zeina Azzam 🍉 I Saw Ramallah - Mourid Barghouti 🍉 Nothing More To Lose - Najwan Darwish 🍉 The Specimen's Apology - George Abraham & Leila Abdelrazaq 🏳️‍🌈 🍉 Shell Houses - Rasha Abdulhadi 🏳️‍🌈 🍉 The Moon That Turns You Back - Hala Alyan 🍉 Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear - Mosab Abu Toha 🍉 Halal If You Hear Me - (ed) Fatimah Asghar & Safia Elhillo 🍉 Water & Salt -Lena Khalaf Tuffaha 🍉 Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow. - Noor Hindi 🏳️‍🌈

✨ Non-Fiction/Memoirs 🍉 Are You This? Or Are You This? - Madian Al Jazerah 🏳️‍🌈 🍉 This Arab is Queer - (ed) Elias Jahshan 🏳️‍🌈 🍉 Love is an Ex-Country - Randa Jarrar 🏳️‍🌈 🍉 Decolonial Queering in Palestine - Walaa Alqaisiya 🏳️‍🌈 🍉 Namesake: Reflections on A Warrior Woman - N.S. Nuseibeh 🍉 The Trinity of Fundamentals - Wisam Rafeedie 🍉 Between Banat - Mejdulene Bernard Shomali 🏳️‍🌈 🍉 Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique - Sa'ed Atshan 🏳️‍🌈 🍉 They Called Me a Lioness: A Palestinian Girl's Fight for Freedom - Ahed Tamimi & Dena Takruri 🍉 Fashioning the Modern Middle East: Gender, Body, and Nation - Reina Lewis and Yasmine Nachabe Taan 🍉 Balcony on the Moon: Coming of Age in Palestine - Ibtisam Barakat 🍉 We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders: A Memoir of Love and Resistance - Linda Sarsour 🍉 Palestine: A Socialist Introduction - Sumaya Awad & Brian Bean 🍉 Voices of the Nakba - Diana Allan 🍉 Tracing Homelands - Linda Dittmar 🍉 Black Power & Palestine - Michael R. Fischbach 🍉 The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine - Ilan Pappé 🍉 A Day in the Life of Abed Salama - Nathan Thrall 🍉 A Land with a People - Esther Farmer, Rosalind Petchesky, & Sarah Sills 🍉 Inara by Mx. Yaffa AS 🏳️‍🌈 🍉 Mural - Mahmoud Darwish 🍉 Light in Gaza - Jehad Abusalim, Jennifer Bing, & Michael Merryman lotze 🍉 The Palestine Laboratory by Antony Loewenstein 🍉 Gaza - Norman Finkelstein

✨ Fiction 🍉 A Map of Home - Randa Jarrar 🏳️‍🌈 🍉 You Exist Too Much - Zaina Arafat 🏳️‍🌈 🍉 The Skin and Its Girl - Sarah Cypher 🏳️‍🌈 🍉 Minor Detail - Adania Shibli 🏳️‍🌈 🍉 The Philistine - Leila Marshy 🏳️‍🌈 🍉 Muneera and the Moon - Sonia Sulaiman 🏳️‍🌈 🍉 Belladonna - Anbara Salam 🏳️‍🌈 🍉 Behind You Is The Sea - Susan Muaddi Darraj 🍉 The Coin - Yasmin Zaher 🍉 Guapa - Saleem Haddad 🏳️‍🌈 🍉 The Parisian - Isabella Hammad 🍉 Salt Houses - Hala Alyan 🍉 The Ordeal of Being Known - Malia Rose 🏳️‍🌈 🍉 From Whole Cloth - Sonia Sulaiman 🏳️‍🌈 🍉 Against the Loveless World - Susan Abulhawa 🍉 The Beauty of Your Face - Sahar Mustafah 🍉 Mornings in Jenin - Susan Abulhawa 🍉 My First and Only Love - Sahar Khalifeh 🍉 They Fell Like Stars From the Sky & Other Stories - Sheikha Helawy 🍉 Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad 🍉 Wild Thorns - Sahar Khalifeh 🍉 A Woman is No Man - Etaf Rum 🍉 Mother of Strangers - Suad Amiry 🍉 Hazardous Spirits - Anbara Salam 🏳️‍🌈 🍉 The Book of Ramallah - Maya Abu Al-Hayat

🏳️‍🌈 Graphic Novels 🍉 Mis(h)adra - Iasmin Omar Ata 🍉 Confetti Realms - Nadia Shammas 🍉 Where Black Stars Rise - Nadia Shammas & Marie Enger 🍉 Nayra and the Djinn - Iasmin Omar Ata 🍉 Squire - Nadia Shammas & Sara Alfageeh 🍉 My Mama's Magic - Amina Awad

[isfjmel-phleg]

Books that I own that I should get to this year if possible:

Alternative Alcott and Work by Louisa May Alcott

Various books by Margery Allingham

Shirley by Charlotte Bronte (have owned this for over a decade but been too daunted by its length to tackle it)

More Annotated Alice

Various books by Agatha Christie

Man and Wife by Wilkie Collins

Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens (another scary brick)

Various Dostoevsky books

The Last Courts of Europe: Royal Family Album 1860-1914 by Jeffery Finestone

Cousin Phillis and Other Tales and Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell

Between Walls and Between Cases by W. R. Gingell

The Child from the Sea by Elizabeth Goudge

Various works by Nathaniel Hawthorne (I got interested in trying to read his works while I visited MA. I had to read The Scarlet Letter in high school, which was unpleasant thanks to our curriculum's pharisaic approach to literature, but I want to revisit it and encounter others as an adult and draw my own conclusions)

Various books by nineteenth-century author Mary J. Holmes (picked up at an antique store including Millbank, which is referred to in the Little House books)

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Tales by Washington Irving

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson (gift from a friend)

Year of the Griffin by Diana Wynne Jones

The Last Empress by Greg King

The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi (a secret pal gift from someone who read my remark on the form that I found it hard to describe my taste in books succinctly, got hung up on the puzzling word "succinct," and scoured the internet for Succinct Books, bless her heart)

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

Bloody Jack by L. A. Meyer

Voices in the Night by Stephen Millhauser

His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett (picked up in a shop because I thought the title was funny; I am not planning to dive into the associated series)

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

Robin: Tim Drake Compendium One (or, as I call it, The Tim Tome)

Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson

Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (picked this up at a booksale because my sister had had to read it for multiple college classes and I was curious)

The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet by Bernie Su (picked up at a booksale forever ago)

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain

Various Jules Verne books

The Friendly Persuasion by Jessamyn West

Doomsday Book and Blackout (and All Clear and Cross Talk if I can acquire them) by Connie Willis

The Sinclair's Mysteries series by Katherine Woodfine

Zero Hour: Part One (and Part Two if I can snag it when it's released later this year)

[francesderwent]

I think my book total for the year was one hundred and twenty-four. I’m absolutely tickled pink.

the book list, with the most recent at the top and recommendations marked by an asterisk, is below the cut:

*Thomas Aquinas, and What I Saw In America, G.K. Chesterton *White Cat and Red Glove, Holly Black *Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke *Sunshine, Robin McKinley How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories, Holly Black *The Hawthorne Legacy, Jennifer Lynn Barnes *The Last Graduate, Naomi Novik *The Man in the Queue, Josephine Tey In the Last Analysis, Amanda Cross *The Seer and the Sword, Victoria Hanley Eleanor & Park, Rainbow Rowell Call Down the Hawk and Mr. Impossible, Maggie Stiefvater The Box in the Woods, Maureen Johnson *Gaudy Night, Dorothy Sayers The Box in the Woods, Maureen Johnson *Something New, P.G. Wodehouse *The Witness for the Dead, Katherine Addison Not Like the Movies, Kerry Winfrey *A Deadly Education, Naomi Novik *Frederica, Georgette Heyer *Heretics, G.K. Chesterton *Crocodile on the Sandbank, Elizabeth Peters *Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses, Kristen O'Neal Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Douglas Adams *The Blatchford Controversies, G.K. Chesterton *The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton Volume V: The Outline of Sanity, The Appetite of Tyranny, The Crimes of England, The End of the Armistice, Utopia of Usurers Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro *Would Like To Meet, Rachel Winters *The Nine Tailors, Dorothy Sayers The City of Brass, S.A. Chakraborty *Brat Farrar, Josephine Tey Big Summer, Jennifer Weiner *The Ordinary Princess, M.M. Kaye Princess of Thorns, Stacey Jay Well Met, Jen DeLuca The Unexpected Everything, Morgan Matson *The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis *Black Sheep, Georgette Heyer Strange Practice, Vivian Shaw *The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton Volume III: Where All Roads Lead, The Catholic Church and Conversion, Why I Am A Catholic, The Thing: Why I Am A Catholic, The Well and the Shallows, The Way of the Cross *Murder Must Advertise, by Dorothy Sayers *Garment of Shadows, by Laurie King *Renegades, Archenemies, and *Supernova, by Marissa Meyer *The Fixer and *The Long Game, Jennifer Lynn Barnes How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge, K. Eason American Primitive, Mary Oliver *Have His Carcase, Dorothy Sayers *The Martian, Andy Weir *The Theft of Sunlight, Intisar Khanani *The Switch, Beth O'Leary *A Scholar of Magics, Caroline Stevermer Magic for Liars, Sarah Gailey *Bath Tangle, Georgette Heyer *A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, Abbi Waxman The Lovely and the Lost, Jennifer Lynn Barnes *The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis Moon Over Soho, Ben Aaronovitch The Five Red Herrings, Dorothy Sayers *How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse, K. Eason *The Silence of St. Thomas, Josef Pieper Tiny Pretty Things, Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton *A Thousand Mornings and *Felicity, by Mary Oliver *Eugenics and Other Evils, G.K. Chesterton *Thorn, Intisar Khanani Midnight Riot, Ben Aaronovitch *The Night Country, Melissa Albert *Regency Buck, Georgette Heyer *If These Wings Could Fly, Kyrie McCauley *Pirate King, Laurie R King The Unhoneymooners, Christina Lauren *Strong Poison, Dorothy Sayers *A College of Magics, Caroline Stevermer *Therese, Dorothy Day *Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour, Morgan Matson Killer Instinct, *All In, and Bad Blood, Jennifer Lynn Barnes *The Superstition of Divorce, G.K. Chesterton *Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen *The Grand Sophy, Georgette Heyer *The Lost Husband, Katherine Center *The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, Dorothy Sayers The Naturals, Jennifer Lynn Barnes Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho *The God of the Hive, Laurie R. King *The Flatshare, Beth O'Leary *Dare We Hope, Hans Urs von Balthasar *The Leaf and the Cloud, Mary Oliver *Unnatural Death, Dorothy Sayers *Dark Lord of Derkholm, Diana Wynne Jones *Devil's Cub, Georgette Heyer *The Everlasting Man, G.K. Chesterton *The Light Princess, George Macdonald The Rest of Us Just Live Here, Patrick Ness Save the Date, Jenny B. Jones Save the Date, Morgan Matson *Deadly Little Scandals, Jennifer Lynn Barnes *An Enchantment of Ravens, Margaret Rogerson Stately Pursuits, Katie Fforde *The Language of Bees, Laurie R. King *Clouds of Witness, Dorothy Sayers *Little White Lies, Jennifer Lynn Barnes The Left-Handed Booksellers of London, Garth Nix *Given, Wendell Berry These Old Shades, Georgette Heyer *The Hazel Wood, Melissa Albert *Since You've Been Gone, Morgan Matson Simon the Coldhearted, Georgette Heyer Camp So-and-So, Mary McCoy The Girl in Blue, P.G. Wodehouse *The Inheritance Games, Jennifer Lynn Barnes House of Salt and Sorrows, Erin A. Craig

I might do a favorites write-up like I did last year, stay tuned!

[dianamargolis]

{ emmy rossum ♔ twenty-nine ♔ she/her } well, well, well if it isn’t diana margolis running around peach hollow. legend has it, they come from tangerine towers and have lived here for one week. if you’re wondering what they’ve been up to, i hear they’re a bartender at cloud nine for a living. they have been known to be temperamental but empathetic. a word of advice to them, always look over your shoulder. you never know who is watching. { ellie ♔ 24 ♔ cst ♔ she/her }

If someone were to ask Di if she liked labels, she would tell them that she didn’t on principle but could still see their use. Labels are restrictive, closing the wearer in a small box until they suffocate. However, labels also hid the complexity of a person’s past and experiences, reducing them to a few words.

So, Di will happily inform someone that she is an Aries, a hot-headed brawler, a nomad, a party-girl, a solid 4 on the Kinsey Scale, and a sarcastic bitch. What those labels hide are anyone’s guess, as she opens up to people so rarely. There is a softer side of her that few get to see. If she loves someone, she will take care of them and defend them to the ends of the universe, but she never allows anyone to care for her deep, secret wounds.

Peach Hollow was just another stop on the road. She plans to stay a few months, just long enough to pay her way to the next town. It’s been this way almost half her life. She assumes this quaint Georgia town will be just like all the others, but she has no idea the hornet’s nest she has stumbled upon.

B A C K S T O R Y

tw: suicide, domestic abuse, child abuse, violence

▼ born in the Bronx, NYC as Pearl Isaacson ▼ father: Malcolm Isaacson (Italian/English) || mother: Joanna Margolis (Ashkenazim) ▼ sister: Mia Isaacson (six years younger) ▼ Her mother committed suicide when Diana was just seven years old, leaving her alone with her baby sister. She knew why. She had peaked through a crack in the doorway to see the continents of bruises on the map that was her mother’s body. ▼ It didn’t take long for Malcolm to turn to the next punching bag. It happened to be Diana. ▼ Child services stepped in when Diana was nine, Mia three. For the next six years, the two of them bounced around foster homes. Sometimes they were put together, and Diana was able to protect her little sister, but sometimes they weren’t. Some families would foster a sweet seven year old but refused to take in an unruly teenager. ▼ Her father remarried to a woman who could nearly rival his cruelness. Every once in awhile, he would convince the courts to let him try again. Fool them all by putting on the perfect show of a happy family. No one listened to her, what she had to say. ▼ There came a moment when she couldn’t take it anymore. She needed out. She begged Mia to come with her, but she wouldn’t. So, she fled. ▼ She lived on the street for awhile before stumbling upon a group of young punks at the skatepark. She fell right into the group, joining all of them. She learned how to have fun, how to skateboard, and, most importantly in her eyes, learned how to fight. Often, an argument would result in a left hook and then someone on the ground. A few times, an entire brawl had broken out. With every busted lip and bloody nose, Diana grew stronger. ▼ Artemis - Missy - was among this group The two instantly clicked. Missy would sneak her in through the window at night, letting her share her bed. She still remembers her first kiss with the girl: the window cracked, letting in the November chill, the smell of her strawberry shampoo, black-tipped fingers tracing circles on her hipbone. She was her first love. But after a year together, that young love fizzled, hardening Diana yet again.

P E R S O N A L I T Y

▼ Myers-Briggs: ISTP ▼ sun:  ▼ sexual orientation: bisexual (4 on the Kinsey Scale) ▼ Diana isn’t necessarily “mean”, but no one would ever make the mistake of calling her “nice” either. She isn’t the easiest person to get along with, especially when she’s in a mood. ▼ She’s all about vibes, and if she senses someone has a bad vibe, she is very likely to be closed-off, if not down-right rude. ▼ DO NOT piss her off. She is ruthless, but not in a cold and calculated way. She is brutal and merciless. She is looking to scratch that itch and put her fists to use, so it’s probably best not to give her an excuse. ▼ She tries not to get in anyone’s business. People are drama, and she has enough of that on her own. Somehow, though, she seems to always end up somewhere in the middle. ▼ She can be funny and flirty when the mood strikes her, but that is a mask. It all is. She falls in love every once in awhile, but it always ends in heartache, so she never lets anyone get close to her, to really know her. When she loves someone though, she protects them fiercely. 

A P P E A R A N C E

▼ curly, messy hair that is often thrown into a bun ▼   often seen in thrift-shop clothes ▼ tattoos: silhouetted birds in flight wrapping around left forearm, crescent moon on right middle finger, band of intertwined barbed wire and rose thorns on her right bicep ▼ scars: faded scar across eyebrow, small scar on upper lip, trio of small and well-faded round scars on left tricep, broken nose ▼ usually has at least two or three bruises in different states of healing, and will sometimes show evidence of her fights (i.e. busted lip, scuffed knuckles, etc.)

M I S C .

▼ She owns a ‘78 olive green Gremlin that she cares for and maintains like it is her child. She won it in an underground fight. ▼ She participates in underground fights on a regular basis, whenever she is feeling agitated. Often she’s the underdog and can make decent bank betting on herself. For awhile, at least.

[newyorktheater]

The dog days of August turn out to be full of theater news – even about dogs; these comfort dogs were watching Billy Elliot at the Stratford Festival, reportedly to practice what it’s like to help their handlers navigate through a theater. (So where are the handlers?) If there is relatively little actual theater happening for the rest of the month,  there have been a huge number of announcements — about new shows, new seasons, complete casts. Plus: theater and politics, and the tawdry side of Broadway.

Week in New York Theater Reviews and Previews

  Rave Theater Festival: Sweet Lorraine, Ni Mi Madre, Stormy Weather

What a sweet surprise to discover Valisia LeKae, so exquisite in her Tony nominate role as Diana Ross in Motown five years ago, portraying Lorraine Hansberry in Sweet Lorraine.

  Make Believe: Bess Wohl’s Elliptical Look at Child Neglect

48 Hours in Harlem with Ntozake Shange

On The Exhale: Gun Violence as Adrenaline on WNET

  The Week in New York Theater News

From the stage of the Lunt-Fontanne during his last performance, Barry Manilow announced that his long-aborning musical, Harmony, about German/Jewish singing group Comedian Harmonists, will be presented Feb 11 – March 29, 2020 via National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene, at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.

I have a personal interest in “Harmony,” because I interviewed Roman Cycowski, the last surviving Comedian Harmonist, shortly before he died at age 97 — such a famous Jewish singer that he actually met Hitler once, and lived to tell the tale

Diana, a musical about Princess Diana, will open on Broadway, March 31, 2020 at the Longacre Theater. Jeanna de Waal will be portraying Diana, joined by Roe Hartrampf as Prince Charles, Erin Davie as Camilla Parker Bowles and Judy Kaye as Queen Elizabeth, all of whom will be reprising their roles from the world-premiere production at LaJolla Playhouse. Christopher Ashley (Come From Away) will direct the show, written by the Tony Award-winning team behind the musical Memphis, Joe DiPietro and David Bryan.

Paula Vogel

Playwright Paul Vogel returns to Broadway (after her long-delayed debut “Indecent”) with her Pulitzer-winning, 1997 play How I Learned to Drive, with its original Off-Broadway stars Mary-Louise Parker and David Morse, directed by Mark Brokaw. The story of a child molester opens April 22, 2020 at MTC‘s Samuel J. Friedman Theater. This will be Parker’s second Broadway show in the season: She’ll star in Adam Rapp’s  “The Sound Inside” at Studio 54 in the fall.

The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical is coming to Broadway, opening October 16, 2019 at the Longacre and running for 16 weeks. I saw this five years ago Off-Broadway. (My review.)  Still just an hour long?

A Christmas Carol will play at Broadway’s Lyceum Theater November 7, 2019 – January 5, 2020, in a version written by Jack Thorne (“Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”) and directed by Matthew Warchus, who directed Broadway’s “Groundhog Day.” Cambell Scott will star as Ebenezer Scrooge.

“Installation on America,” FREE collaborative theater piece exploring race relations, by @LabTheaterNYC (eg @johnortiz718 @DaveAnzuelo @nycbatwife @Kellrod@AaronRWeiner et al) thrice nightly August 22-24 at @CherryLnTheatre, in support of @RAICESTEXAS & @ACLU pic.twitter.com/EqQqZJTV8O

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) August 16, 2019

  The cast of “The Inheritance,” a play by Matthew Lopez about a new generation of gay mean that opens November 17, will feature Lois Smith, John Benjamin Hickey and Jordan Barbour, Jonathan Burke, Andrew Burnap, Darryl Gene Daughtry Jr., Dylan Frederick, Kyle Harris, Paul Hilton, Samuel H. Levine, Carson McCalley, Kyle Soller, and Arturo Luis Soria (whom I just saw in his solo show “Ni Mi Madre”)

Nineteen actors portray 50 characters in Robert Schenkkan’s  “The  Great  Society,” his  follow-up  play  about  President  Lyndon  Johnson, opening Oct 1. Here’s the full cast list:

James Cusati Moyer and Ato Blankson-Wood

Sullivan Jones and Annie McNamara

The cast of Slave Play, which opens October 6 at Broadway’s John Golden Theater and runs through January 5, will feature the actors who appeared in it Off-Broadway — Ato Blankson-Wood, James Cusati-Moyer, Sullivan Jones, Chalia La Tour, Irene Sofia Lucio, Annie McNamara, and Paul Alexander Nolan — joined by Joaquina Kalukango who will create the role of Kaneisha for the Broadway production. The cast is being understudied by Eboni Flowers, Thomas Keegan, Jakeem Dante Powell, and Elizabeth Stahlmann.

Mary Beth Peil as Duncan  will join Corey Stoll and Nadia Bowers as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in Classic Stage Company’s production of Shakespeare’s tragedy, October 10 to December 15. The cast will also feature  Erik Lochtefeld as Banquo, Barzin Akhavan as Macduff, Raffi Barsoumian as Malcolm, N’Jameh Camara as Lady Macduff, Antonio Michael Woodard as Fleance/Young Macduff and Jade Wu as Ros

Consummate director Anne Kauffman (Marjorie Prime, Marvin’s Room, Maple and Vine, Mary Jane, and dozens of plays that don’t begin with “M”)  will helm Sarah Silverman’s musical memoir The Bedwetter, which will begin performances on April 25th, 2020 at the Atlantic Theater

All hail @LaMaMaETC‘s forthcoming 58th season, which celebrates founder Ellen Stewart’s centennial & features premieres by Philip Glass, Andrei Serban, Estelle Parsons, Theodora Skipitares, Anne Bogart & many morehttps://t.co/mZOSiDLR9v pic.twitter.com/ffe4FWchSr

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) August 14, 2019

“The reason why I’m sitting here talking to you & not dead or in jail is because the theater saved my life”- @theebillyporter on why he stays in theater (latest: directing @Huntington) despite @PoseOnFX TV fame.@AmericanTheatre interview w/ @diepthoughthttps://t.co/YdTCP5WPuf pic.twitter.com/6Abbfk6XD0

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) August 16, 2019

Politics and Theater

Margaret Trudeau, mother to one Canadian prime minister and ex-wife to another, will perform her solo show, Certain Woman of an Age, for three nights (September 12-14) at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theatre. “She opens up about her wild child days, isolating marriage, motherhood and disastrous romances with famous men.” This is part of “Special Audible Performances” which will be recorded as audio books. (Later in September at the Minetta Lane: Diana Nyad’s “The Swimmer”)

  More than a thousand protesters in Hong Kong sang Les Miserables’ ‘Do you hear the people sing?’ at HK international airport with their calls for free election and democracy

More than thousand HKers sing Les Miserables’ ‘Do you hear the people sing?’ at HK international airport with their calls for free election and democracy. Here is the Ground Zero in the war against authoritarian rule. That’s the reason for us never surrender. pic.twitter.com/1MkTp4BkVg

— Joshua Wong 黃之鋒 (@joshuawongcf) August 10, 2019

  Can live theater help spur climate action?

The Tawdry Side of Theater

Ben Sprecher, “duped” producer of Rebecca.

Ben Sprecher, a Broadway producer best-known for the “Rebecca” debacle,  was arrested on child porn charges. Ben Sprecher, 65, of Manhattan, was charged with possession and distribution of child pornography

Faye Dunaway in Tea at Five

Michael Rocha, Faye Dunaway’s $1,500-a-week assistant on Mathew Lombardo’s play “Tea at Five” during its Boston tryout, filed a suit against the actress in  Manhattan Supreme Court accusing her of “regularly and relentlessly” subjecting him to “abusive demeaning tirades” that included calling him “little homosexual boy.” Rocha claims that after he complained about the behavior, he was fired, told  Dunaway “is not comfortable with you anymore.”

The producers of the solo play about Katherine Hepburn fired Dunaway, after accusations that she abused the crew, and scrapped plans for the show.

  Rest In Peace

Peter Fonda with daughter Bridget Fonda

“Henry Fonda’s son: That’s how everybody identified me until Easy Rider came along.” Peter Fonda, 79, who was also a Broadway veteran, appearing in the 1961 “Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole”

  Opening in NY: Manilow’s Harmony, Diana, How I Learned to Drive, The Lightning Thief, A Christmas Carol. Tawdry Broadway. #Stageworthy News Up The Wazoo. The dog days of August turn out to be full of theater news – even about dogs; these comfort dogs were watching Billy Elliot at the Stratford Festival, reportedly to practice what it's like to help their handlers navigate through a theater.

[aion-rsa]

David F. Walker on Shaft, Nightshade and the Problem with Cyborg

Critical darling David F. Walker sat down with writer Geoffrey Thorne to discuss his career and perspectives on the industry during a special WonderCon panel focusing on Walker’s career, in comics and beyond.

Among the many stories he shared during the panel, Walker admitted that “Number 13” wasn’t his first professional work after self-publishing comics for many years. He’d previously worked on the English language adaptation of “Tokyo Tribes” for Tokyopop in 2004, though that mainly involved “putting in cuss words.”

Walker described the creative process on “Number 13” — which he called a “postapocalyptic version of Pinocchio” — as unusual. Artist Robert Love approached him to collaborate on a project that already had 24 pages drawn, with no words attached to them. He took more of a hands on role, learning to outline better, and Walker said there had never been any tension between them. “It felt really smooth. A lot of it was figuring out logistics… we’re friends to this day, he’s never pulled a knife on me.” Walker took general details and themes — a mutant eating someone’s leg, fight scenes — and translated that into scripts on a schedule.

Walker grew up in Portland and graduated high school the day Dark Horse Comics opened its doors. He took classes at the Joe Kubert School and the School of Visual Arts, but ended up working as a journalist. Diana Schultz reached out to him at his newspaper in 2001 to see if he would interview Will Eisner, who was coming to Portland for a Dark Horse event. Walker leapt at the chance, as no other outlet in town would cover the comics legend. “Mainstream America did not know who Will Eisner was until two years before he died,” Walker explained.

Eisner was skeptical of Walker at first, but they ended up speaking for two hours about comics, and Eisner found himself impressed with Walker’s comics knowledge. When Walker admitted making comics was his dream but maybe it was too late, Eisner responded, “It’s never too late for anything.” That set a fire under Walker that led him to accept Love’s offer. He’s proud of “Number 13” because it was the first work he didn’t have “in the trunk of my car, you had to have my pager number to get it. I’d be like, ‘You want some comics? I’ll be there in 25 minutes!'”

Shortly after that period, Walker was freelancing for MSN as an entertainment writer. He, along with the other sixteen entertainment writers were fired at the same time, which cemented Walker’s ambitions. “‘Hunger Games’ hadn’t come out, so it was like ‘Battle Royale’ for entertainment writers,” Walker said, who wanted to be writing fiction and comics.

Next in his publishing history came “The Supernals Experiment” with Canon Comics, a company founded by NFL veteran Philip Buchanon. “I’m broke, right? With the money from ‘Supernals,’ I paid an artist to draw ‘The Army of Dr. Moreau’ that had been percolating for five years. Didn’t pay my rent, didn’t pay my car note, didn’t pay any bills — I paid an artist.”

During this period, Walker pursued bringing John Shaft to comics. He tracked down the holders of the publishing rights and explained what he wanted to do: create a comic true to the novels. He got their blessing and brought the deal to Dynamite Entertainment, the only company he felt was right for “Shaft.” “They were silly enough to say ‘yes’ in writing,” Walker explained. A year and a half later, the deal was done.

“When I was looking at publishers that weren’t afraid to do R-rated — it had to be R-rated, not PG-13. They had to go there, and Dynamite was the only one that was going there and was still available in Previews. They were also licensing a lot of stuff.” Walker said he calculated that doing Shaft would “shave maybe two to three years off my professional journey. I hate to sound that cold and calculating.”

Walker’s editor on “Supernals” got a call from “certain publishers I won’t name,” looking for diverse writers. She sent “Supernals” to that company, saying Walker was easy to work with. Shortly before “Shaft” came out from Dynamite, Walker started working on one of their properties.

Revealed that he was talking about DC Comics and “Cyborg,” Walker said, “DC had seen ‘Supernals’ and they had seen ‘Army of Dr. Moreau,’ but they hadn’t seen ‘Shaft.’ I strongly believe DC was like, ‘We need a Black guy.’ I just happened to be in the path as that runaway train hit me. Around the same time, Marvel reached out to me, saying, ‘We love Shaft, you have a clear voice.’ When ‘Cyborg’ came out from DC, Marvel reached out again and they were like, ‘You’re the guy who wrote ‘Shaft?!’ This is what you’re writing?'”

“It was a cage match, it was tables, ladders and chairs,” Walker said of his time on “Cyborg.” “There was a lot of struggle. I was like, ‘You don’t have enough Black characters, so you have to be cognizant that this character means more than you think he means. It’s not the story about, ‘Is he more man or is he more machine?’ He is more man. If he was 99% machine, he’s still gonna be more man. The story is about, he can see his own humanity, it’s always gonna show through. I know because comics meant more to me than they probably should have. Black characters meant more to me than they probably should have, because there were so few of them.” Walker also noted the appeal the character had for disabled fans.

Walker said, “I was under the false impression that all we needed was diverse creators working on diverse characters, and we’d be on our way to fixing a lot of problems. No, you also need diverse editors, people in the marketing department who get it, the distribution angle has to get it, retailers have to get it, the comics journalists have to get it. Unless you get all these things to align, you’re Sisyphus.”

“I left DC prematurely,” Walker said. “Marvel was knocking at my door … it was a scary time. To the outside world, it looked like the timing had been perfect, that I left DC and had my Marvel stuff lined up. There was this gap, I’d drive by a Jiffy Lube and see they were accepting applications. I was a neurotic mess. Marvel was interested. We were talking about a ‘Nick Fury’ solo series, and the editor left and that fell apart. Nighthawk went into development, and we spent a long time on that. ‘Power Man and Iron Fist’ came along.” There were talks of him taking on “Black Panther” as well, but Walker was concerned about being pigeonholed.

Even with that, “Nighthawk” was the title that seemed to answer all fan questions about Black characters, but it didn’t sell well enough to stay afloat. Fortunately, it allowed him to rehabilitate Tilda Johnson a.k.a. Nightshade. “I kind of fell in love with Tilda,” Walker said. While it was Nighthawk’s book, his intention with the undone second story arc was to shift the focus to make her the actual main character, much as Milestone’s Rocket was to Icon. “Tilda is the women that raised me,” Walker said. “My aunts, my grandmother. Now, she’s in ‘Occupy Avengers.’ You couldn’t write a character this angry if it was a Black man.”

The post David F. Walker on Shaft, Nightshade and the Problem with Cyborg appeared first on CBR.

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[jaimiesam]

2016 Reading Wrap-Up

Better late than never with this post I suppose :D

This past year, I read quite a few books. It felt like a slow year, and I jumped around a lot, from genre to genre and series to series. I don’t think I finished any series. Although I actually did get through many books, it didn’t feel like a lot at the time. I really delved into some long books this year, which was both frustrating and rewarding. Those books that took me the longest to read were also some of the ones I enjoyed the most :)

Without further ado, here is the list of books I read this year! I hope you can get some ideas if you didn’t know what to read next! After the list I’ll also go into specifics about some of my favourites, and some of the ones I really didn’t get along with… (Also, just a side note, they’re not organized in anyway other than the order that I read them in!)

The Cuckoo’s Calling - Robert Galbraith

Truthwitch - Susan Dennard

Nimona - Noelle Stevenson

Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell

11/22/63 - Stephen King

A Study in Charlotte - Brittany Cavallero

Dream On - Kerstin Gier

Ms. Marvel: No Normal - Wilson & Alphona

Young Avengers: Style > Substance - Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Mike Norton

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone - J. K. Rowling

Saga Vol 5 - Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples

The Crown - Kiera Cass

The Hidden Oracle - Rick Riordan

Kindred Spirits- Rainbow Rowell

Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon

Out of Sight, Out of Time - Ally Carter

The Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy - Sam Maggs

The Blackthorn Key - Kevin Sands

Lola and the Boy Next Door - Stephanie Perkins

Saga Vol 6 - Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples

A Game of Thrones - George R. R. Martin

Everything, Everything - Nicola Yoon

Isla and the Happily Ever After - Stephanie Perkins

Jessica Jones: Alias Vol 1 - Brian Michael Bendis & Michael Gaydos

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - J. K. Rowling, Jack Thorne, John Tiffany

Jessica Jones: Alias - Rebecca Come Home Vol 2 - Brian Michael Bendis & Michael Gaydos

Anna and the French Kiss - Stephanie Perkins

Ant-Man Vol. 1, Second Chance Man - Nick Spencer, Ramon Rosanos

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1, Cosmic Avengers - Brian Michael Bendis, Steve McNiven

A Clash of Kings - George R. R. Martin

A Court of Mist and Fury - Sarah J. Maas

White Noise - Don DeLillo

Beloved - Toni Morrison

Angels in America - Tony Kushner

Happily Ever After - Kiera Cass

Magnus Chase: The Hammer of Thor - Rick Riordan

Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri

The Sleeper and the Spindle - Neil Gaiman & Chris Riddell

Voyager - Diana Gabaldon

Romeo and What’s Her Name - Shani Petroff

My Favourites

Dragonfly in Amber

Voyager

A Game of Thrones

A Clash of Kings

A Court of Mist and Fury

I continued the Outlander series this year with books 2 and 3, and they blew me away. Sequels are so hard to get right, but Dragonfly in Amber was a breathtaking story, followed by the thrilling journey of Voyager (read my last post for my full thoughts on Voyager!).

And I started the A Song of Ice and Fire series! I’m really really loving it, and I’ve just started the third book. I must say, I did fly through A Clash of Kings much faster than A Game of Thrones, devouring the majority of it in about a week.

And finally, ACOMAF. I love the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas, but her A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) series cannot be beat. While I really enjoyed the ACOTAR, ACOMAF was just amazing. I loved where she took the series and the characters (both new and old), and genuinely missed my bus home one day because I was so immersed in reading it.

Honourable Mentions

Nimona

11/22/63

A Study in Charlotte

Jessica Jones Graphic Novels

Stephanie Perkins Novels

White Noise

Now these are books that I greatly enjoyed, but wouldn’t hold to the same level as those on my favourites list. For graphic novels, Nimona was a whimsical, hilarious story that was just extremely enjoyable, and the Jessica Jones: Alias series I found just dark enough, with a more likeable, human Jessica than the TV Show.

I read my first Steven King novel this year! And 11/22/63 was the perfect place to start for me, as I’m not a fan of horror, so I was immediately drawn in by this historical fiction time-travel story, about the assassination of JFK and one man’s attempt to stop it.

As for my favourite contemporary books of the year, I’d immediately go for Stephanie Perkins’ novels. I read Anna back in 2015, so this year got around to reading the last 2 in the trilogy. They were just so easy to read, and such a nice, light break from some of the much heavier books I was reading. I don’t think I spent more than two days reading any of the books, they were just lovely to read.

A Study in Charlotte was a YA Sherlock Holmes inspired novel, where Charlotte Holmes was the inquisitive, intelligent, and quick-witted descendent of Holmes himself, who befriends Jamie Watson (similarly related to John Watson). Although not the most shocking or revolutionary of mysteries, I really enjoyed the dialogue between Holmes’ and Watson, and some of the more serious issues discussed in the text and how they were handled.

And finally, White Noise, a book I read for my English course. This book was one I enjoyed simply because it was the one that frustrated me the most. I absolutely loved how much frustration this book evoked from me. The main character proves to be extremely arrogant, self-centred and misguided as the book progresses, and yet the book makes such intelligent observations of everyday life, it’s really quite interesting to read.

Books I Didn’t Enjoy

Dream On

Everything, Everything

Romeo and What’s Her Name

Harry Potter and The Cursed Child

*sigh* and now for the books that disappointed me… Kerstin Gier penned the Ruby Red Trilogy, another time-travel series that I enjoyed a fair bit, and after reading Dream a Little Dream, I was really anticipating the release of the sequel, Dream On. Unfortunately, it just felt like a filler book, and a lot of it felt unnecessary. I got quite bored with it, and it just didn’t do it for me.

Everything, Everything. Now this book frustrates me. And not in a good way, as with White Noise. It frustrates me in a “why did you go in this direction? It feels like such a lazy ending” sort of way. I was skeptical going into this book, as it deals with a girl who is allergic to everything, and as I have multiple allergies, I am quite picky about how it’s represented in books. I didn’t like the main character, I thought she was rash and made some stupid, reckless, unjustified decisions. And I was extremely annoyed at the ending, it just felt like such an easy out for the author, as she didn’t have to spend the time allowing this character to grow and learn, but rather erase her issues entirely. Overall, I just didn’t get along with this book very well, and yet I do know a lot of people did enjoy it. *shrug* at least the design and format was enjoyable.

Now, this next book comes out Feb. 7, 2017 (I received an arc for review), but unfortunately it wasn’t my favourite. In Romeo and What’s Her Name, the story felt rushed, and the protagonist felt quite childish and cringey at times. I mean, it was cute enough, but there wasn’t enough going on to properly capture my attention.

And finally, dare I say it, Harry Potter and The Cursed Child. I can’t in my right mind categorize it as a legitimate Harry Potter novel. It wasn’t written by J. K. Rowling. That’s enough for me. It was so lacking in her signature style and voice, and there was an absence of magic in it, that was so necessary to the story and the continuation of these beloved characters. I am such a huge fan of Harry Potter, so I really don’t say this lightly, but I just didn’t enjoy it. I found the plot contradictory to the rules set out in the original HP novels (*cough cough* Prisoner of Azkaban), and there were many things that certain characters did that I did not think would ever be in their nature to do. Specifically a certain line said by Harry. I just did not see it as something he would ever say to his son. I’m sure the stage production was an entirely different experience, and I’d actually be extremely curious to see it, as I have heard amazing things about it. But just from reading it, I didn’t like the story. And the biggest issue for me, once again, was that it just did not feel like a Harry Potter story.

Well, if you’ve made it to the end of this very long post, I applaud you. I do hope you enjoyed it, and got some good book recommendations. I’d love to know your thoughts on any of these books, did you like them? Hate them? Or if you have any book recommendations of your own, I’d love to hear them :D Thanks for reading!