Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole. Although musical theatre overlaps with other theatrical forms like opera and dance, it may be distinguished by the equal importance given to the music as compared with the dialogue, movement and other elements. Since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called, simply, musicals.
Oklahoma! is the first musical written by the duo of Rodgers and Hammerstein. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs. Set in farm country outside the town of Claremore, Indian Territory, in 1906, it tells the story of farm girl Laurey Williams and her courtship by two rival suitors, cowboy Curly McLain and the sinister and frightening farmhand Jud Fry. A secondary romance concerns cowboy Will Parker and his flirtatious fiancée, Ado Annie.
Dandy Nichols was an English actress best known for her role as Else Garnett, the long-suffering wife of the racially bigoted and misogynistic character Alf Garnett in the BBC sitcom Till Death Us Do Part.
Mikhail Nikolayevich Baryshnikov is a Soviet Latvian-born Russian-American dancer, choreographer, and actor. He was the preeminent male classical dancer of the 1970s and 1980s. He subsequently became a noted dance director.
Sir Frederick William Mallandaine Ashton was a British ballet dancer and choreographer. He also worked as a director and choreographer in opera, film and revue.
Jerome Robbins was an American dancer, choreographer, film director, theatre director and theater producer who worked in classical ballet, on stage, film, and television.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is the debut novel by British writer Susanna Clarke. Published in 2004, it is an alternative history set in 19th-century England around the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Its premise is that magic once existed in England and has returned with two men: Gilbert Norrell and Jonathan Strange. Centred on the relationship between these two men, the novel investigates the nature of "Englishness" and the boundaries between reason and unreason, Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Dane, and Northern and Southern English cultural tropes/stereotypes. It has been described as a fantasy novel, an alternative history, and a historical novel. It inverts the Industrial Revolution conception of the North–South divide in England: in this book the North is romantic and magical, rather than rational and concrete.
David Garnett was a British writer and publisher. As a child, he had a cloak made of rabbit skin and thus received the nickname "Bunny", by which he was known to friends and intimates all his life.
The Hawthornden Prize is a British literary award that was established in 1919 by Alice Warrender, having been born at Hawthornden. Authors under the age of 41 are awarded on the quality of their "imaginative literature", which can be written in either poetry or prose. The Hawthornden Committee awards the Prize annually for a work published in the previous twelve months. There have been several gap years without a recipient.
Maya Mikhailovna Plisetskaya was a Soviet and Russian ballet dancer, choreographer, ballet director, and actress. In post-Soviet times, she held both Lithuanian and Spanish citizenship. She danced during the Soviet era at the Bolshoi Theatre under the directorships of Leonid Lavrovsky, then of Yury Grigorovich; later she moved into direct confrontation with him. In 1960, when famed Russian ballerina Galina Ulanova retired, Plisetskaya became prima ballerina assoluta of the company.
James Hawes is a British television director. He has worked in British television drama since the mid-1990s, and has also produced documentaries for British and American television networks. His work has ranged across high-end period pieces and prime-time adventure drama, including the re-launch of Doctor Who and Enid, a biopic starring Helena Bonham Carter about the celebrated children's author Enid Blyton, which won Hawes a BAFTA nomination as Best Director at the 2010 ceremony.
The Fox and the Hound is a 1967 novel written by American novelist Daniel P. Mannix and illustrated by John Schoenherr. It follows the lives of Tod, a red fox raised by a human for the first year of his life, and Copper, a half-bloodhound dog owned by a local hunter, referred to as the Master. After Tod causes the death of the man's favorite hound, man and dog relentlessly hunt the fox, against the dual backdrops of a changing human world and Tod's normal life in hunting for food, seeking a mate, and defending his territory. As preparation for writing the novel, Mannix studied foxes, both tame and wild, a wide variety of hunting techniques, and the ways hounds appear to track foxes, seeking to ensure his characters acted realistically.
Sounder is a 1972 American period drama film directed by Martin Ritt and adapted by Lonne Elder III from the 1969 novel of the same name by William H. Armstrong. The story concerns an African-American sharecropper family in the Deep South, who struggle with economic and personal hardships during the Great Depression. It stars Cicely Tyson, Paul Winfield, and Kevin Hooks. Taj Mahal composed the film's blues-inspired soundtrack, and also appears in a supporting role.
Northern Ballet, formerly Northern Ballet Theatre, is a dance company based in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, with a strong repertoire in theatrical dance productions where the emphasis is on story telling as well as classical ballet. The company tours widely across the United Kingdom.
Impressing the Czar is a four-act, award-winning, postmodern ballet choreographed by William Forsythe to music by Thom Willems, Leslie Stuck, Eva Crossman-Hecht, and Ludwig van Beethoven. It was premiered in its full-length version in 1988 in Frankfurt am Main by the Ballet Frankfurt.
David Dawson, is a British choreographer.
The Sailor's Return is a 1925 British novel by David Garnett. In Victorian England, a black woman "marries" a sailor and faces hostility from the local community in Dorset.
Edward Clug is an international renowned choreographer in the field of contemporary ballet and a director of Maribor Ballet. Clug studied classical ballet in Cluj-Napoca.
Dancer is a novel based on the life of Rudolf Nureyev, written by Colum McCann and published in 2003.
Andrée Howard was a British ballet dancer and choreographer. She created over 30 ballets, of which almost nothing remains.
