THE N. C. ESSAY
VOLUME V, NO. V
NORTH CAROLINA SCHOOL OF THE ARTS
NOVEMBER 9, 1970.
Murray Directs
Brustein** Opens
Tlie late Lorraine Hansberry’s “The Sign In Sidney Brustein’s
Window,” opened at the School of the Arts on November 6 and will run
through November 19 in the school’s Drama Tlieatre.
Hie production is under the direction of Robert Murray, a resident
director and instructor in the NCSA School of I>ama. liie set was
designed by John Sheden, Dean of the Department of Design and
Technical Production, with lighting by Ward Resur, Staff Designer,
and costumes by Linda Margosian, a costume major in the School of
Dfisipi.
“Hie Sign In Sidney Brustein’s Window,” (the title refers to an
election campaign poster), was a vehicle for Miss Hansberry to ex
plore her most passionate concern: political corruptions, com
mitment, racism, marriage and personal disillusionment, "ae plot is
secondary to the development of such characters as Brustein and his
wife, a prostitute contemplating vrtio sells out to the machine, a
homosexual writer and disillusioned woman trapped in a loveless
marriage.
Cast in these varied roles are Andy Wood and Steve Bordner, who
will alternate as Sidney; Joyce Reehling, as his ambitious wife; and
Ron Dortdi, as the sensitive Black man who is in love with the
(H-ostitute, played by Berlinda Tolbert. Also in the cast are Stanley
Bernstein, Kurt Yaghjian, Christine Rosania, Jim Stubbs, Wiliam
Jaegar and John Domberger.
‘"nie Sign In Sidney Brustein’s
Wmdow” was premiered in New
York during the 1964-65 season,
and featured Rita Moreno and
Gabriel Dell in the leading roles.
It is set in the Greenwich ViUage
apartment of Sidney Brustein, a
Jewish intellectual, who ac
cording to the author, is “poised
in hesitation before the flames of
involvement.” He is married to
a volatile Gentile who is
struggling between the role she is
playing as Brustein’s country girl
wife and her own desire to
become an actress.
Tlie impact of the play is the
change which takes place in these
two central characters as they
lose the innocence about life with
which they have protected
themselves and, in their numb
ness, reached out for meaning
and commitment.
Miss Hansberry, a gifted Black
writer, died of cancer at 34,
shortly before the R-oadway
premiere of “The Sign in Sidney
Brustein’s Wmdow.” She herself
was married to a Jew, Robert
Nemiroff, who produced the play
together with Durt D’Lugoff and
J.I. Jahre. The play drew mixed
critical notices, but a group of
theatrical people, clergy and
others were so impressed by the
work that they formed a com
mittee and raised money to keep
it going for about three months. It
is currently being revived in
some regional theaters, including
plans for a June Production by
the Arena Stage in Washington,
D.C.
Murray said he selected this
particular work because he
wanted to use a contemporary
American play with a sufficient
number of sizeable and
challenging roles to provide an
opportunity for each of the ten
students in the department’s pre
professional program. He fur^er
said that in “Sdney Brustein”
there is length and depth and
dimension to every character.
Discussing the casting of the
play, Murray said toat any
student actor cast by him in any
play is given the role for one
reason; “It is a part that helps
him grow unlike anything he’s
ever done before.”
Although Miss Hansberry
chose to deal with several socid
problems in this play, she has a
central theme, which Murray
feels she summed iq) in a
quotation from her earlier prize-
winning play, “A Raisin in the
Sun”:
“When you start measuring
somebody, measure him right,
child, measure him right. Make
sure you done take into account
what hills and valleys he come
through before he got to
wherever he is.”
i Orchestra tours |
§•
The Piedmont Orchestra began
its fall tour of 12 concerts in
Charlottesville, Va., on
November 4. The toiu- lasts for
two weeks.
The orchestra, which is
composed largely of NCSA
faculty members, was made
possible by a grant from the
Rockefeller Foundation. The
grant was intended to establish a
chamber orchestra of
professional musicians in the
Southeast, both as an incentive to
such musicians to settle in this
area and also to stimulate
talented students to apply for
study with them at the S^ool of
the Arts.
For this tour, Roger Hall, in his
capacity as President of the
Foundation, arranged for Leon
Fleisher, the prize-winning
pianist, to serve as guest con
ductor.
Fleisher began his musical
career as a child prodigy, making
his piano debut at age seven in
San Francisco. He was accepted
as a pupil by Artur Schnabel
when he was 10 and studied both
in this country and in Italy before
beginning his concert career at
14.
He was the first American to
win a major European music
competition when, at 23, he won
first prize in the ^een Elizabeth
of Belgium International Music
Competition.
After an undiagnosed ailment
robbed him of the use of his right
hand in 1965, Fleisher mastered
the unusual piano repertoire
written for the left hand alone.
Most of this music was com
missioned by the pianist Paul
Wittgenstein who had lost his
right arm in World War I.
Fleisher was on campus last
week for rehearsals and reported
that he was very happy to be
working with the Piedmont
Orchestra, a feeling that was
mutual.
Photo by Beck
Freundlich Oass
Irwin Freundlich, head of the
NCSA piano department and
Juilliard faculty member, gave a
master class Tuesday evening,
Oct. 27, in the NCSA Main
Auditorium. This was the first
Freundlich class of the year, and
others will follow about once a
month. The classes are held in
ttie main auditorium on Tuesday
nights, and are open to the public.
Beginning at 7:30, they last ap
proximately two hours.
Last week’s program was as
follows: Cynthia Wechen per
formed Beethoven’s “C Major
Concerto”; Alan 29ngale, the
Liszt-Busout “La Caupauella;”
Bruce Moss, the Chopin “Bar
carolle;” and Leslie Spotz, the
Mendelssohn G Minor Concerto.
S CONVOCATION 1
i: Florence Jeanne Good-
iii-man, California poet,
teacher and critic, will read
K her own lyric poetry at the
:Jc Wednesday convocation this
week at 1:30 in the Student
§: Commons. Mrs. Goodman’s
poetry has appeared in a j:-:
is variety of journals over the
past twenty years and has >•:
been included in readings at $
S: Harvard and UCLA.
g;
Viewpoint
A Techie’s First Tour
By KEVIN DREYER
The first dance tour this year traveled to seven North Carolina
towns over the midsemester break. “Workout,” “Flick-FIack” and
“Poeme” were performed in six public schools and one college. The
following story is the view from the wings or the back of the truck.
PM
“Joseph,” just back from Bethlehem, plans his next trip.
Photo By Dreyer
A tour is an interesting paradox. It can be fun and enjoyable or, if
you let it get the better of you, it can be a real terror.
When I first found out that I was going on tour, I was very excited. I
figured it was the best thing in the world, but that’s not how other
people felt. Everyone I talked to was of the same negative opinion.
“You’ll be dead on your feet by the time you get back.” “Don’t
delude yourself into thinking that it’s going to be fun, because...well,
you’ll find out soon enough.” “Have you said good-bye to your parents,
because it may be the last time you’U see them.” Not one person had a
nice word and not one person suggested it might be fun. The talk was
all of no sleep, no food and getting hassled.
One of the first things I was taught was that I should get into the
habit of carrying a crescent wrench in my back pocket: it serves as
protection, but it is not a concealed weapon. We were urged to buy
heavy tools- not necessarily to do a good job, but rather for protection.
But in spite of the intensive preparation and the extreme paranoia of
some of the crew and dancers, we never once got hassled by local
grits. One crew member gave me a monkey wrench for a particular
job and told me to keep it when I was through with it.
“Take it,” he said, “I know that when 20 grits stand around staring
at you, they aren’t just curious.” But as it happened, they were just
that: curious.
Another blanket statement that was made was that we would get lost
at least once a day and that we would often be stopped by smaU town
police. Well, we (Ud get lost just about every day out- but the small
town police left us alone.
We were stopped once by a state policeman for failing to stop at a
weighing station. Then he discovered that our U-Haul van had no in
spection sticker. It cost us about an hour of time and $15, but even the
most paranoid of the crew had to agree that “he was a pretty nice
pig.”
At the end of the tour, I was tired and I think my stomach may have
shrunk, but I was certainly not dead. I was back from work every
night about 10:00 and did not have to be back until 6:30 the next
morning. We had the option of getting a full breakfast and one other
meal a day; some days we even had three meals! Any one who wanted
to badly enough could have been both well rested and well fed!
But a tour isn’t just not sleeping, not eating and getting hassled! It’s
the late hours setting up. It’s the poor facilities. It’s adaptability. It’s
the gratification of an appreciative audience.
There is fun and frustration in setting up and performing a show in a
gymnasium. It is fun because it is a chaUenge and frustrating for the
same reason. The first couple of times, it is fun to figure out how to
mask windows with nothing suitable provided or to watch mice run
across the dressing room floor.
Then there are the ice fights, the midnight parties and the late
ni^t shuffle board games. Then there was the arrival of the midnight
raiders who threatened to break into the truck, if we didn’t give them
something. We sent them off with an empty brandy bottle. Then there
was the time that one of the dancers got wrapped up in a back drop on
one of the smaller stages.
It’s all over now, but the spirit lives on. We’ll tell the stories of this
tour until everyone knows them by heart or until we get some better
ones to tell. And until I have some better ones myself, all I can say to
sum it up is “I hope I go on Nutcracker.”