Oliver Wolf Sacks was a British neurologist, naturalist, historian of science, and writer. Born in London, Sacks received his medical degree in 1958 from The Queen's College, Oxford, before moving to the United States, where he spent most of his career. He interned at Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco and completed his residency in neurology and neuropathology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Later, he served as neurologist at Beth Abraham Hospital's chronic-care facility in the Bronx, where he worked with a group of survivors of the 1920s sleeping sickness encephalitis lethargica epidemic, who had been unable to move on their own for decades. His treatment of those patients became the basis of his 1973 book Awakenings, which was adapted into an Academy Award-nominated feature film, in 1990, starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro.
Lili Ilse Elvenes, better known as Lili Elbe, was a Danish painter, transgender woman, and one of the earliest recipients of gender-affirming surgery.
Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes is a 1991 American two-part play by American playwright Tony Kushner. The two parts of the play, Millennium Approaches and Perestroika, may be presented separately. The work won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Tony Award for Best Play, and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play. Part one of the play premiered in 1991, followed by part two in 1992. Its Broadway opening was in 1993.
The Riverfront Times (RFT) was a free progressive weekly newspaper in St. Louis, Missouri, that consisted of local politics, music, arts, and dining news in the print edition, and daily updates to blogs and photo galleries on its website. As of June 2008, the Riverfront Times had an ABC-audited weekly circulation of 81,276 copies.
Tobias Picker is an American composer, pianist, and conductor, noted for his orchestral works Old and Lost Rivers, Keys To The City, and The Encantadas, as well as his operas Emmeline, Fantastic Mr. Fox, An American Tragedy and Lili Elbe, among many other works.
Awakenings is a 1973 non-fiction book by Oliver Sacks. It recounts the life histories of those who had been victims of the 1920s encephalitis lethargica epidemic. Sacks chronicles his efforts in the late 1960s to help these patients at the Beth Abraham Hospital in the Bronx, New York. The treatment used the new drug L-DOPA, with the observed effects on the patients' symptoms being generally dramatic but temporary.
Opera Theatre of Saint Louis (OTSL) is an American summer opera festival held in St. Louis, Missouri. Typically four operas, all sung in English, are presented each season, which runs from late May to late June. Performances are accompanied by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, which is divided into two ensembles, each covering two of the operas, for the season. The company's performances are presented in the Loretto-Hilton Center for the Performing Arts on the campus of Webster University.
Rupert Goold is an English director who works primarily in theatre. He is the artistic director of the Almeida Theatre, and was the artistic director of Headlong Theatre Company (2005–2013). Since 2010, Goold has been an associate director at the Royal Shakespeare Company. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2017 for services to drama.
Emmeline is an opera in two acts composed by American Tobias Picker with a libretto by J. D. McClatchy. Picker's first opera, it was commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera company and premiered in 1996. Based on Judith Rossner's novel of the same name, Emmeline is an American retelling of the Oedipus myth from the mother’s viewpoint.
Nick van Bloss is an English classical pianist and author who has Tourette syndrome. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London.
The Theater St. Gallen is a performing arts center for opera, musical, ballet, and theatre in St. Gallen, Switzerland, and considered to be the oldest professional theatre in Switzerland. It is a Swiss heritage site of national significance.
Pearl Abraham is an American novelist, essayist and short story writer. She was the third of nine children in a Hasidic family. Her father was a rabbi. At age five, the family moved to New York City and two years later returned to Israel. Following several moves back and forth between New York and Israel, the family settled in New York when she was 12. She studied first in Yiddish, then in English and then again in Yiddish.
Aryeh Lev Stollman is a writer and physician based in the United States. A neuroradiologist at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, he has also published several works of fiction.
George Maguire is an English actor and musician, known for originating the role of Dave Davies in the musical Sunny Afternoon.
Opera Fusion: New Works (OF:NW) is a partnership between Cincinnati Opera and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) dedicated to fostering the development of new American operas. This collaboration is jointly led by Evans Mirageas, the Harry T. Wilks Artistic Director at Cincinnati Opera, as well as Robin Guarino, Professor of Opera at CCM. Since its founding in 2011, OF:NW has developed twenty-four new American operas. From the program's inception in 2011 through 2022, co-founders Marcus Küchle and Guarino served as co-artistic directors.
Jarrett Porter is an American baritone known for his performances as an opera and lieder singer.
The Encantadas is an orchestral composition written by the American composer Tobias Picker in 1984 for the Albany Symphony Orchestra.
Roberto Kalb is a Mexican-born conductor, composer, and pianist, currently living in Berlin, Germany. As a conductor, he is praised for his musicianship and clarity.
Lili Elbe is an opera in two acts composed by Tobias Picker, with a libretto by Aryeh Lev Stollman, starring Lucia Lucas as Lili Elbe. Based on the life of Lili Elbe and her book Man into Woman: An Authentic Record of a Change of Sex, the opera premiered on 22 October 2023, and received "Best World Premiere" in the 2023 Oper! Awards.
