|
International Shaw Society Executive Committee Michael
O’Hara, President Ellen
Dolgin, Vice President R. F.
Dietrich, Treasurer & Webmaster John
McInerney, Outgoing Recording Secretary Sharon
Klassen Incoming Recording Secretary Ann
Stewart, Outgoing Membership Secretary Mary Christian Incoming Membership Secretary Ex-Officio Advisory Michel
Pharand General
Editor, SHAW Leonard Conolly Richard Dietrich Past
Presidents Advisory Committee Anthony
Gibbs Christopher
Innes Norma
Jenckes Brad Kent Lagretta
Lenker Martin
Meisel John
Pfeiffer Jean
Reynolds Ann
Saddlemyer Tony
Stafford Jay Tunney Al Turco Stanley
Weintraub Don Wilmeth Chris
Wixson Honorary
Advisory Eric
Bentley Charles
Berst Charles A.
Carpenter Bernard
Dukore Elizabeth
Dunford Nicholas
Grene Michael
Holroyd Sue Morgan Rhoda
Nathan Margot
Peters Barbara
Smoker Time to renew membership. Please send the form to: ISS P.O. Box 728 Odessa, FL 33556-0728 This Newsletter was produced by Michel
Pharand, General
Editor of SHAW: The Journal of Bernard Shaw Studies, and ISS Webmaster R.F. Dietrich ISS Homepage: |
2014 End-of-Year Newsletter
Shaw
Society |
Table of Contents A Message from the President of the ISS |
Table of Contents |
|
|
A Message from
POTISS (President of the ISS) We’ve had a heck of an “off” year for
the ISS. In May we held our second “ShawChicago Symposium” in the Claudia Cassidy Theatre at
the Chicago Cultural Center and enjoyed a wide range of international
speakers, including a marvelous keynote by noted critic for
the Chicago Tribune, Chris Jones. The symposium was capped by a
riveting performance of Man and
Superman directed by Robert Scogin, Artistic
Director of ShawChicago. In July, the annual Shaw
Symposium, at the Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake, treated ISS members
and theatre lovers to an equally wide range of international speakers and to
productions of The Philanderer and Arms and the Man, the former a rare
treat with Shaw’s original third act in place. Our thanks and a rousing round
of applause to Tony Stafford and Robert Scogin of ShawChicago, and to Dorothy Hadfield and Suzanne
Merriam, for coordinating and leading those two events. Since 2015 is
an “on” year, we will again be gathering in Niagara-on-the-Lake for the
Summer Symposium, and our “on” year conference, co-sponsored by Fordham
University, will take place in October 2015 at Fordham's Lincoln Center
Campus and the Bruno Walter Auditorium at the Library for the Performing Arts
Lincoln Center and will feature the Gingold Theatrical Group’s production of The Doctor’s Dilemma, directed by
David Staller, as the conference’s capstone event. I look forward to
seeing many of you at these two events!
Michael O’Hara Associate Dean,
College of Fine Arts Sursa Distinguished Professor of Fine Arts Ball State
University |
A
Message from the Vice-President of the ISS Greetings
Fellow Shavians! In 2014 I have continued the
presence of Shaw at NeMLA, this time collaborating with
two other ISS members as chairs of sessions for the forthcoming conference in
Toronto scheduled for April 30-May 3, 2015. Kay Li will run a session on the
Digital Humanities that will include her presentation of materials for Shaw’s
Arms and the Man. Larry Switzky and
I got enough submissions for The Self-Made Man in Victorian/Edwardian Fiction
and Drama to have 2 sessions; his will be about the fiction, drama and
cultural studies context of the era and mine will be on Shaw and Wilde. Larry
and Mark Lepitre will present papers on Shaw in
connection to this theme: Larry’s on Three
Plays for Puritans and Mark’s on Back
to Methuselah. A former student of Larry’s from Harvard, Rebecca Kastleman, will give a paper on Goethe, Nietzsche, and
Shaw and the Superman. The panel’s final paper will be on Wilde’s queer
self-construction through his gender-bending characters. We will do what we
can to initiate some new members from the attendees. Jesse Hellman will come
up for the conference and maybe bring his long-time friends Joel Kaplan and
Sheila Stowell. Their daughter Isabel is working
with Larry on her PhD and is giving a paper on Victorian stage detectives.
Many, many thanks to Kay and Larry!! On December 8th I will be one of the panel members for
David Staller’s Shaw New York Symposium. This year it will be held at The
Players and will concentrate on Major
Barbara. When I was part of last year’s event at the Pearl Theatre around
You Never Can Tell, there was a
good size audience; since David’s production is doing well, I am expecting
the same for the upcoming one. I am grateful to Joan Templeton for working with me on hotel
accommodations for next October’s “Shaw in New York” conference and for the
brainstorming about potential topics for sessions there. I will be teaching
my “Shaw and his Circle” course in Fall 2015 and will bring my students to
the conference! |
|||
|
Ellen Dolgin Chair, English Department, and Co-Chair, Gender Studies Dominican College of Blauvelt |
||||
|
SHAW
IN THE THEATER IN 2014: A SAMPLER |
||
|
1) THE
SHAW/CHICAGO THEATER COMPANY The ShawChicago Theatre Company celebrated
its twentieth season with productions of Pygmalion (12 October to 4
November 2013), Saint Joan (1 to 24 February 2014), and Man and
Superman (26 April to 19
May 2014), all of them directed by Robert Scogin,
Artistic Director. See www.shawchicago.org/. The International Shaw Society celebrated its own anniversary – its
tenth! – with a symposium, “Shaw’s Use of
Language—Artistic Innovation, Social Critique and Political Argument: His
Cultural Legacy,” held on 16 and 17 May at the Chicago Cultural Center in
conjunction with ShawChicago’s production of Man and Superman.
From
a concert reading of “Don Juan in Hell” in the fall of 2014: Richard
Marlatt as The Commander, Mary Michell
as Dona Ana, Christian
Gray as Don Juan, Jack Hickey as The Devil |
||
|
2)
PROJECT SHAW IN NEW YORK The Gingold Theatrical Group (GTG), headed by producer and director
David Staller, continues to stage a concert reading of one Shaw play per
month at New York’s legendary Symphony Space (West 95th Street and Broadway).
The 2014 season included Arms and the
Man, The Philanderer, Heartbreak House, Getting Married, Village
Wooing, The Millionairess,
and Shaw-related events. The GTG will celebrate its tenth anniversary in 2015 with Widowers’ Houses, Misalliance, Overruled,
Fanny’s First Play, Man and Superman, The Doctor’s Dilemma, You
Never Can Tell, and The Shewing-Up
of Blanco Posnet. For more information, contact
info@gingoldgroup.com or go to www.projectshaw.com.
GTG
founder David Staller and ISS Vice President Ellen Dolgin at the 2014 NeMLA Convention in Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania . |
||
|
3) THE
WASHINGTON STAGE GUILD The
Washington Stage Guild’s 2014 season included two parts of Back to
Methuselah ("In the
Beginning" and "The Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas"),
directed by Bill Largess, with “As Far as Thought Can Reach” scheduled for
performance in 2015 (19 February to 15 March). This multi-year cycle of
Shaw’s “Metabiological Pentateuch” will culminate
in 2016, when the WSG celebrates its 30th anniversary. For
information, go to http://stageguild.org/performances/. |
||
|
4) THE
GAINESVILLE SHAW SOCIETY The Gainesville Shaw Society (GSS) was
founded by Dean Avery and Krsnaa Fitch in February
2013. Its first production was Geneva
(26 May 2013) and in 2014 the GSS staged
Saint Joan (11 to 20 April),
directed by Fitch, at the Acrosstown Repertory
Theater, 619 S. Main Street, Gainesville, FL. For more information, contact gainesvilleshawsociety@gmail.com. |
||
|
5)
SHAW IN BRITISH COLUMBIA The Arts Club Theatre Company in Vancouver, BC,
Canada, staged Saint Joan, starring
Meg Roe and directed by Kim Collier, at the Stanley Industrial Alliance
Theatre from 9 to 23 November. For details and video clips of this production
(which used a revolving stage), go to http://artsclub.com/shows/2014-2015/saint-joan?gclid=CKTEq9_l7cECFc1_MgodhnEAWg. |
||
|
6)
SHAW AT NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, ONTARIO The 53rd Annual Shaw Festival (4 April
to 26 October 2014) at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada, featured Shaw’s Arms and the Man (4 April to 18
October), directed by Morris Panych, and The Philanderer (26 June to 12
October), directed by Lisa Peterson.
Pictured above: Martin Happer as Major Sergius Saranoff, Graeme
Somerville as Captain Bluntschli, Kate Besworth as Raina Petkoff and
Norman Browning as Major Paul Petkoff in Arms and the Man.
Pictured above: Gord Rand as Leonard Charteris and Moya O’Connell as Julia Craven in The Philanderer. The Shaw festival also staged Cabaret, based on the play by John Van
Druten and stories by Christopher Isherwood, The Philadelphia Story by Philip
Barry, When We Are Married by J.B.
Priestley, Juno and the Paycock by Sean O’Casey, The Charity that Began at Home: A Comedy for Philanthropists by
St John Hankin, The
Sea by Edward Bond, A Lovely Sunday
for Creve Coeur by Tennessee Williams, and The Mountaintop by Katori Hall. The 54th (2015) season will
feature Shaw’s Pygmalion (31 May to
24 October), directed by Peter Hinton, and You Never Can Tell (26 April to 25 October), directed by Jim Mezon. The program will also include Sweet Charity by Neil Simon, Light
Up the Sky by Moss Hart, The Lady
From the Sea by Henrik Ibsen, Top
Girls by Caryl Churchill, The Twelve-Pound Look by J.M. Barrie, Peter and the Starcatcher by Rick Elice, The Divine:
A Play for Sarah Bernhardt by Michel Marc Bouchard, The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a
Key to the Scriptures by Tony Kushner, and The Next Whisky Bar (a Kurt Weill Cabaret) created by Paul Sportelli and Jay Turvey. For further information, write to Shaw
Festival, Post Office Box 774, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada, L0S 1J0;
or call 1-800-511-SHAW [7429] or 905-468-2153; or go to www.shawfest.com. |
||
|
7)
SHAW AT AYOT ST LAWRENCE The plays staged in 2014 at Shaw’s Corner, Ayot St Lawrence, by
Michael Friend Productions were The
Philanderer (27 to 29 June) and Heartbreak
House (25 to 27 July). For information about summer performances of Shaw
plays at Shaw’s Corner, contact Sue Morgan at Sue.Morgan@nationaltrust.org.uk or Michael Friend at michaelfriend@mfp.org.uk. |
||
|
8)
SHAW IN LONDON For details about a fourteen-city touring production
of Pygmalion (16 June to 8 March),
go to www.uktw.co.uk/archive/Tour/Play/Pygmalion/T01631487556/. The program
essay was written by L.W. Conolly and Sir Michael Holroyd. The National Theatre’s production of Man and Superman, directed by Simon
Godwin and starring Ralph Fiennes (as Jack Tanner), will run at the Lyttelton Theatre from 17 February to 17 May 2015. For
details, go to http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/man-and-superman. |
||
|
9)
SHAW IN DUBLIN Following successful productions of Pygmalion (2011) and Major Barbara (2013), The Abbey
Theatre staged its first ever production of Heartbreak House (14 August to 13 September 2014). For details,
go to www.abbeytheatre.ie/about/. |
||
|
10)
SHAW IN JAPAN Professor Hisashi Morikawa
(Wakayama College of Technology), of the Bernard Shaw Society of Japan
(BSSJ), sends the following interesting report: September
2014 marked the release of a movie musical entitled Maiko wa Lady (Maiko is a Lady). The
story takes place in Kyoto and stars Haruko, a
16-year-old who aspires to be a maiko, an apprentice to a geiko (as geisha are called in Kyoto). Although Haruko
must learn many things—such as Japanese dancing and how to play traditional
instruments—her biggest obstacle is that she was born and raised in
Kagoshima, in the southernmost part of Japan, before moving (aged 10) to
Aomori, in the north. The result is that she speaks an amalgam of two
different dialects, both of them very different from
the Kyoto dialect—and most maiko are traditionally Kyoto-born and -bred. Well, along
comes a university professor of dialects who vows to teach Haruko the perfect Kyoto dialect! Haruko duly goes to his lab every day to learn the proper
pronunciation and intonation of Kyoto Japanese. In the course of her lessons,
however, she falls in love with him—but he remains oblivious of her feelings.
The musical ends with the heroine’s debut as a maiko, celebrated by everyone
around her except for the professor’s assistant (the Pickering figure), who
is critical of the geiko
system. The
movie is a sugary adaptation of My Fair
Lady— one of the songs is “Kyoto-bonchi ni ame ga
furu” (It rains on the Kyoto Basin), derived from
“The Rain in Spain”—and although it contains no feminist message or critiques
of class (as does Pygmalion), one
can at least enjoy watching the heroine grow into a maiko who becomes fluent in
Kyoto dialect. There is an arresting image of the heroine at http://www.maiko-lady.jp/. The director is Masayuki Suo, whose film Shall
We Dance? (1996) was such a smash hit in Japan and the USA that it was
remade by Hollywood in 2004, starring Richard Gere. |
||
|
11)
SHAW AROUND THE GLOBE Of course there were many other productions of
Shaw’s plays around
the world, and we regret that we haven’t space to mention them all. You can get notices of them
by subscribing to Google
Alerts at http://www.google.com/alerts. For
links to some of the Shaw plays performed in the USA, Canada and the UK
in 2013-15, go to http://libra.apps01.yorku.ca and look (to the far right) at the
column headed International Shaw Calendar. A click on any play title
will link you to a website giving production details. For reviews of
performances of Shaw plays around the world in 2014, go to http://libra.apps01.yorku.ca/the-shaw-project-3/shaw-reviews-for-season-2014/.
Past
performances of Shaw plays can be found at http://libra.apps01.yorku.ca/the-shaw-project-3/past-and-present-performances/shaw-calendar-archives/.
For
reviews of past performances of Shaw plays at the Shaw Festival, go to http://libra.apps01.yorku.ca/learn-about-our-partners-2/shaw-festival/shaw-festival-productions-reviews/. These
invaluable resources are updated regularly by Kay Li (York University,
Canada), to whom go kudos and many thanks! |
||
|
SHAW
MEETINGS AND CONFERENCES IN 2014 |
||
|
1) THE
38th ANNUAL COMPARATIVE DRAMA CONFERENCE (3-5
April 2014) was held at Stevenson University in Baltimore, Maryland, with two
Shaw sessions chaired by Tony J. Stafford (University of Texas, El Paso) that
included papers by Tony Stafford (Shaw and Dalkey Hill); James Armstrong
(CUNY), Visions of Immortality: Shaw’s Back
to Methuselah and Luigi Antonelli’s A Man Confronts Himself; Jesse Hellman
(independent scholar), Lady Hamilton Disguised: Reborn as Eliza Doolittle;
and Mary Christian (Indiana University), “As Good as a Play”: Shaw, Ibsen,
and Metatheatrical Marriage. |
||
|
2) THE
11th ANNUAL SUMMER SHAW SYMPOSIUM (25-27
July) at the Shaw Festival, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada, was
organized by D.A. Hadfield (University of Waterloo) and was sponsored by the
Academy of the Shaw Festival and the International Shaw Society. It included
papers by Michael O’Hara (Major Barbara:
Artistic Visions and Receptions), Jesse Hellman (Lady Hamilton, Nelson’s Enchantress, and the Creation
of Pygmalion), Bob Gaines (Cutting
a Shaw Text: a Director’s Perspective), John McInerny
(The Perils of Playing Sergius in Arms and the Man), Larry Switzky
(Public and Private Emotions in Arms
and the Man), Kay Li, Leslie Sanders and Liam Rodrigues (Live Pilot:
Designing Inclusive Online Curricular Materials for Arms and the Man on the Sagittarius-ORION Literature Digitizing
Project), Lizzie Dunford (The Philanderer Tamed: Charlotte Shaw and the
Shaping of GBS), Mary Christian (Acting like an Advanced Woman: Shaw and the
Performance of Ibsenism), Al Lyons (Shaw + Hankin:
Reforming the Philandering Philanthropist), Tony Stafford (The Philanderer: Home Is Where the
Hearth Is), and Leonard Conolly (The
Philanderer: A Tale of Two Endings). |
||
|
John R.
Pfeiffer (Central Michigan University), editor of “A Continuing Checklist of
Shaviana” for The Shaw Review from
1972 to 1980 and for SHAW: The Annual
of Bernard Shaw Studies from 1981 to 2014, is
stepping down after over forty years of continuous service to Shaw
scholarship. The occasion was marked at the July 2014 Shaw Symposium at
Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, where SHAW
general editor, Michel Pharand (Queen’s University, Canada), presented John
(seated, below) with an original copy of Shaw’s Common Sense about the War, published on 14 November 1914 as a
special war supplement to The New
Statesman and inserted as a separate pamphlet. We raised our glasses in
John’s honor and remain grateful to him for his invaluable contribution to
Shaw Studies!
|
||
|
Not as
old as Shaw’s pamphlet but just as rare and precious is this historic photograph
of three distinguished Shavian luminaries in their roles as off-duty ISS
Presidents: (L to R) Michael O’Hara (third and current), Dick Dietrich (first
and founding), and Leonard Conolly (second). Inspirations to us all!
|
||
|
3)
THE 45th ANNUAL NeMLA CONVENTION (3-6 April) at Harrisburg, PA, included two roundtables, both
chaired by Ellen Dolgin (Dominican
College of Blauvelt): “Staging
the New Woman: Shaw, Suffrage and Theatre as Activism,” with papers by Kate
Farrington (Pearl Theatre
Company), Amanda Sharick-Moreno (University of California at
Riverside), Sarah Canfield-Fuller (American Public University System), and Anna Andes (Susquehanna University); and “Global Shaw,” with papers by
Mark Lepitre (Université Laval), Elsa Nettels (College of William and Mary), and Annette Magid (SUNY Erie Community College). The
conference’s keynote address was given by Gingold Theatrical Group director
David Staller, who spoke to an audience of almost 200 on “Anti-Classicist
Shaw: Off the Page and On His Feet as Spokesman for Today.” In addition, a
panel on Joan of Arc included a paper by Mark Lepitre
(Université Laval) and, at a second panel, Christopher
Innes (York University) and mezzo-soprano Brigitte Bogar
(Toronto) traced the representation of Joan of Arc in opera, with reference
to Shaw. |
||
|
4) THE 129th ANNUAL MLA CONVENTION (9-12 January) at Chicago, IL, included a
Shaw session entitled “Shaw and Adaptation: Reinvention, Refinishing,
Embodiment,” organized and chaired by Lawrence Switzky (University of
Toronto). Presenting papers were Elizabeth Carolyn Miller (University of California
at Davis), Brett Gamboa (Dartmouth College) and
Jennifer Buckley (University of Iowa). Switzky summarizes the session as
follows: Elizabeth
Miller talked about how Shaw founded New Journalism—along with W.T. Stead and
other advocates of reportorial reform—by troubling the notion of the
"signature." Anonymity allegedly guaranteed a kind of objectivity
for authors and reviewers in Victorian journalism, but Shaw insisted on the
greater urgency of accountability, personality and style as features of news
that would both record and reform. Brett Gamboa
proposed that we think about Shaw's use of Shakespeare not only in terms of
the appropriation of phrases and word-music, but also in terms of the ways
that Shakespeare structures expectation and disappointment for his audiences.
He offered an extended reading of Heartbreak
House alongside King Lear as
dramas of inertia, in which incomplete, decoy, or plot lines without closure
engage us by constantly arousing and deliberately denying our engagements. Jennifer
Buckley concluded by proposing that Shaw could be read through an avant-garde
theatrical tradition—from Wassily Kandinsky through
Antonin Artaud and The Living Theater—through his
attempts to “textualize” the embodied nature of
sound. Buckley argued that Shaw was not as satisfied with the form of the
book-as-play as is generally assumed, but that he was a ceaseless
experimenter in capturing and conveying sonic experience. |
||
|
5) LECTURES — THE
50th ANNUAL SHAW SEMINAR (7-10 August 2014), co-hosted by L.W. Conolly and
Karen Fricker (Brock University), was held at the
Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. — L.W.
Conolly spoke to THE SHAW SOCIETY (UK) on Androcles and the Lion at
the Park Theatre, Finsbury, London, on 20 October
2014. |
||
|
6) SHAVIANS Former
ISS President L.W. Conolly (Emeritus, Trent University) was given a Lifetime
Achievement Award by the Canadian Association for Theatre Research at its
annual banquet in May 2014. The award recognizes contributions to the
Association in particular (Conolly was a founding member and served as
President 1977-79) and the field of theatre scholarship in general. He has
also been awarded the degree of DLitt by Swansea University, where he took
his BA (1963) and PhD (1970). The university's senior doctorate degree of
DLitt is awarded to those who “have made an original and substantial
contribution to their discipline over a significant period of time” and “have
established an authoritative standing in their discipline.” |
||
|
UPCOMING
EVENTS & CALLS FOR PAPERS (in order of deadlines) |
||
|
1) THE
12TH ANNUAL SUMMER SHAW SYMPOSIUM at the
Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, in July 2015 will be organized
by Brad Kent (Université Laval) and will include presentations
about and discussions on Shaw’s works, in particular the two plays being
staged at the Festival that season: Pygmalion
and You Never Can Tell. For details see www.shawsociety.org/SummerSymposium-2015.htm . |
||
|
2) THE
39th ANNUAL COMPARATIVE DRAMA CONFERENCE (26-28
March 2015) will be held at Stevenson University in Baltimore, Maryland, with
two Shaw sessions to be chaired by Tony J. Stafford (University of Texas, El
Paso). Christopher Innes (York
University) and mezzo-soprano Brigitte Bogar
(Toronto) will be giving a plenary speech on “Shakespeare and Music.” Please go to http://comparativedramaconference.stevenson.edu/registration.html for details. |
||
|
3) THE 46th ANNUAL NeMLA CONVENTION
(30 April to 3 May
2015) will be held at Ryerson University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Larry Switzky
(University of Toronto) and Ellen Dolgin (Dominican College of
Blauvelt) will be chairing a panel
and seminar on “The Self-Made Man (or Woman) in Victorian and Edwardian
Fiction and Drama” that will feature three papers on Shaw. Please go to https://nemla.org/convention/2015/ for details.
(Note that a valid passport is required to enter the country.) |
||
|
4) GBS
in NYC: THE MANHATTAN SHAW CONFERENCE A “Shaw in New York” conference will be held
from 16 through 19 October 2015 at the Fordham University Lincoln Center
Campus and the Bruno Walter Auditorium of the New York Public Library for the
Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, both co-sponsors with the International
Shaw Society. Papers on the “Shaw in New York” theme (see below
and the conference website for examples) will be especially welcomed, but
other topics are possible; please query ISS President, Michael O'Hara, at mohara@bsu.edu. Papers focused on productions of and responses to Shaw’s works
in New York and on the reactions of local media to Shaw’s historic 1933 visit
would be relevant, as would papers based on research in the New York Public
Library’s Shaw collections, especially as they reflect upon Shaw’s presence,
physical or spiritual, in New York. And since we’ll be seeing
David Staller’s production of The
Doctor’s Dilemma at Symphony Space, this is another obvious choice for a
paper. Abstracts with letters of introduction (if you are not known to
President O'Hara) and accompanying c.v. should be sent
by 1 July 2015 to mohara@bsu.edu. If you are applying for an ISS Travel Grant (see www.shawsociety.org/iss-travel-grants-2015.htm), note this in your email and append the
application to the rest. Please note that your paper and/or travel
grant application should not be considered finally accepted (in the sense of
your being listed on the conference program) until you have officially
registered for the conference.
For information about registration and other conference-related matters,
please see www.shawsociety.org/Shaw-in-NewYork-Conference-2015.htm, although the registration page will not be
up until later in the year when costs are better known. Please
note that www.shawsociety.org is the official homepage of the
International Shaw Society and the place to look for links to all sorts of
relevant information.
It would help to have early notification of your plans to attend this
conference and intentions to present a paper, so please send such
notification to President O'Hara at mohara@bsu.edu, if you haven’t already done so. |
||
|
|
||
|
1.) VIDEO
OF WEINTRAUBS’ VISIT TO “SHAW’S CORNER” IN SUMMER OF 2014 Just click on www.gamelabuk.com/daz5 to get it rolling, and then click on
G. Bernard Shaw's signature when it pops up to hear Stan Weintraub’s commentary
at various stops along the way. There's also a sighting of the
House Steward Sue Morgan and Assistant House Steward Lizzie Dunford, our
splendid and gracious hosts at the Shaw Conference in 2013 in Ayot St
Lawrence. This is not to be missed, folks; it’s one for the
ages. Thanks to Stan and Rodelle for providing this great
treat. 2)
SHAW BEHIND THE CAMERA The London School of Economics has digitized
its collection of some 20,000 photographs and negatives taken by Shaw. To explore
this amazing visual resource, go to http://archives.lse.ac.uk/Advanced.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog. In the field marked “Ref No” type in “Shaw
Photographs*” (don’t forget the asterisk);
then click “Search.” This will give you access to over 15,000 photographs,
which you can view by clicking on the links. |
||
|
3)
RECENT AND FORTHCOMING BOOKS ON SHAW This year saw the publication of the eighth
volume in the University of Toronto Press’s distinguished series, “Selected
Correspondence of Bernard Shaw.” The book, edited by the indefatigable Shaw
bibliographer Charles A. Carpenter, is Bernard
Shaw and Gilbert Murray. The ninth (and final) volume in the series will
be Bernard Shaw and William Archer,
edited by Tom Postlewait, due for publication in 2015. Volumes continue to appear
in the remarkable edition of Shaw’s letters to and from his French
translator, Augustin Hamon, edited by Patrick Galliou and published by the Centre de Recherche Bretonne et Celtique, Université
de Bretagne Occidentale at Brest. In 1998 came the
four large volumes of George Bernard
Shaw et Augustin Hamon:
les premier temps d’une correspondance
(1893-1913).
In 2014 Galliou published a fifth volume, Correspondance George Bernard
Shaw–Augustin Hamon, II: Les années
médianes (1914-1925). A sixth volume, marking the
third and final installment in the series, is due to be published in 2015.
Brad Kent (Université Laval) has edited a
volume entitled Shaw in Context
(Cambridge UP), to be published in 2015. This collection of essays, written
by more than forty contributors, cover a wide range of theatrical, cultural,
social and political topics, filtering Shaw’s life and works through the lens
of his times. Ellen
Dolgin (Dominican College of Blauvelt) will be publishing her book Bernard Shaw and the Actresses Franchise
League: Staging Equality with McFarland & Co. in 2015. Another
Shaw book by Stanley Weintraub (Evan Pugh Professor Emeritus of Arts &
Humanities at Penn State University and Adjunct Professor of English at the
University of Delaware) will be on the shelves in early 2015. Bernard Shaw Before his First Play. The
Embryo Playwright will be published by ELT Press with an e-book from
Johns Hopkins University Press. This latest work by the doyen of Shaw Studies
covers Shaw’s formative decades as novelist, diarist, polemicist, memoirist, critic of music and the arts, and aspiring playwright. Peter Gahan (independent scholar, Los Angeles) has completed a
book-length study provisionally entitled The
Return: Bernard Shaw in Ireland 1900-1925. Palgrave Macmillan is pleased to announce a new book series: Bernard Shaw and His Contemporaries,
edited by Nelson O’Ceallaigh Ritschel and Peter Gahan.
The books in this series will strive to present the best and most current
research on Shaw and his theatre and literary contemporaries, and to further
our understanding of Shaw and of those who worked with him or in reaction against
him. The first titles in the Palgrave Macmillan Shaw Series are set to appear
in 2015. Please look for announcements. Queries and manuscripts may be sent to Nelson Ritschel (nocrsc@aol.com), Peter Gahan (pgahan@me.com) and / or Shaun Vigil (Shaun.Vigil@palgrave-usa.com). Please note that although the University Press of Florida is no
longer accepting manuscripts for its Shaw Series (edited for nearly two
decades by the indomitable R.F. Dietrich), there are nineteen books on Shaw
available for purchase. Go to http://upf.com/seriesresult.asp?ser=gbshaw for a complete list. |
||
|
4) SHAW: The Journal of Bernard Shaw Studies Beginning in 2015, SHAW: The
Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies will be published bi-annually (in June and
December) under the name SHAW: The
Journal of Bernard Shaw Studies. SHAW 35.1 (June 2015), a theme issue devoted to “Shaw
and Modernity,” with Lawrence Switzky (University of Toronto) as guest
editor, will consider Shaw’s significance as an artist and critic during the
emergence of artistic, social, political, and cultural modernity. For
inquiries, contact Lawrence Switzky at lawrence.switzky@utoronto.ca. SHAW
35.2 (December 2015), edited by Michel Pharand
(Queen’s University, Canada) will
include articles on general topics, as well as book reviews, the Checklist of
Shaviana, Notices, and ISS information. Submit abstracts (50 to 100 words)
and papers to Michel Pharand at michelpharand@yahoo.com. SHAW
36.1 (June 2016), a theme issue devoted to “Shaw
and Money,” with Nelson Ritschel (Massachusetts Maritime Academy) and Audrey
McNamara (University College Dublin) as guest editors, will explore Shaw’s
views on and experiences with any aspect of money and finance, as well as their
treatment in his plays and novels. Shaw, the anonymous philanthropist who hid
behind a notoriously parsimonious façade, the egalitarian Socialist who drove
a Rolls-Royce, was keenly interested in money and its impact on people,
famously writing that the “lack of money is the root of all evil.” Among his
plays dealing with money and wealth (explicitly or implicitly) are Widowers’ Houses, Mrs Warren’s Profession, The Millionairess, Major
Barbara, The Philanderer, and Buoyant Billions – to name the most
obvious. Possible topics could include the following: tainted money;
inheritances and legacies, heirs and heiresses; earnings and wages; gambling,
the loss of financial security; hoarding and squandering; lending and
borrowing; philanthropy and charity; investments (good and bad); misuses or
misappropriation of funds; disparities between rich and poor; “the crime of
poverty”; business and banking; international finance (e.g., the economics of
warfare); money and marriage; money and morality; money and politics; Shaw’s
friendships with the very rich; Shaw’s financial transactions (e.g., with
publishers and theater managers); Shaw’s earnings (royalties, investments,
taxation); Shaw’s expenses (cars, cruises, etc.); Shaw as anonymous
philanthropist; Shaw on money (in his prefaces and letters); Shaw and Fabian
economics; Shaw and Karl Marx; Shaw and Maynard Keynes; Shaw and capitalism;
etc. Submit abstracts (50 to 100 words) and papers to Nelson Ritschel at nritschel@maritime.edu or Audrey McNamara at neamh01@eircom.net. 5.) "SHAW’S MUSICAL UNIVERSE"
available on a CD Those
who attended the "Shaw at Home" conference in Ayot St Lawrence were
treated to an evening of the sort of music that Shaw as a child in Dublin
heard his mother sing, this time sung by mezzo soprano Brigitte Bogar, and that repertoire has been expanded and recorded
on a CD and annotated by Brigitte and Christopher Innes. Below is
Christopher's email on this subject, which explains how to order the
CD. 6.)
Exhibition of The Shavian at the U.
of Extremadura, Spain Arranged by Gustavo A. Rodrigues Martin,
this exhibition will take place in February of 2015 at the Faculty of Letters (Universidad
de Extremadura, Caceres). See http://www.unex.es/conoce-la-uex/centros/fyl .
|
||
|
|
||
|
The Sagittarius-Orion-Shaw Digitizing
Project: To
access A Virtual Tour of Shaviana, go to http://libra.apps01.yorku.ca/virtual-tour-of-shaviana/. There are two main sections: 1) an open
access platform and 2) a restricted access platform accessible only on the
Ontario Research and Innovation Optical Network (ORION),
that will ensure copyright restrictions. The open access platform
includes: 1) “Who is Bernard Shaw” written by Stanley and Rodelle Weintraub;
2) a calendar of productions of Shaw’s plays around the world; 3) theatre
productions with links to reviews and videos of performances around the
world; 4) Footsteps of Bernard Shaw, with videos showing Shaw’s world tour;
5) links to Al Carpenter’s Shaw Bibliography; 6) virtual tours of the
late Isidor Saslav’s amazing Shaw collections; 7)
links to Shaw holiday shopping; 8) links to numerous electronic Shaw texts;
9) links to Shaw Festival Study Guides; and 10) other classroom resources on
specific plays. The restricted access platform continues to feature classroom
resources, such as annotated full texts, study guides, reference materials
written by Shaw scholars, an annotated bibliography, and concordances and a
search engine. A special feature for ISS members includes an interactive
collaborative platform on ORION O3 at https://shaw.othree.ca/ complete with a “Fantasia for Shaw
Scholars.” Among the many features are individual blogs for Shaw
scholars, Shaw Wiki, and a Shaw Forum. Facebook & Twitter: Follow the ISS on Twitter and receive ISS
updates on Facebook (click “Like” on the International Shaw Society page; the
more “Likes,” the more notice everywhere). For assistance, write to Jean
Reynolds at ballroom16@aol.com Google Alerts: To
sign up for your own Google Alerts on Shaw, go to www.google.com/alerts. ISS Homepage: There are countless pages about Shaw’s life
and works on, or linked from, www.shawsociety.org and many of them are continuously updated
by ISS Webmaster R.F. Dietrich. Shaw Bibliography: Al
Carpenter’s invaluable and regularly updated masterwork, A Selective, Classified International Bibliography of Publications
About Bernard Shaw, is available at harvey.binghamton.edu/~ccarpen/ShawBibliography. |
||
|
|
||
|
Gustavo Rodríguez Martín (Universidad de Extramadura,
Spain) is now engaged in propelling Shaw Studies into the digital age! In
2014 he began collaborating with a computer programmer to develop an
interface that will enable anyone to search Gustavo’s database without
infringing on copyright restrictions (as most of Shaw’s works will not go out
of copyright until 2020). To find out more about (and see samples of) this ground-breaking
enterprise, go to http://shawquotations.blogspot.com.es/2014/09/digitizing-shaw-shaw-quotation-database.html and www.shawsociety.org/SEARCH.htm. Gustavo is currently organizing an exhibit entitled “The Shavian (1946-2014): Scholarship, History, and
People” to be held at the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras of the
Universidad de Extremadura from 16 to 27 February 2015. It will showcase
issues of The Shavian from the
collection generously donated by Evelyn Ellis of the Shaw Society (UK). |
||
|
ISS
TRAVEL GRANT WINNERS FOR 2014 |
||
|
Lizzie Dunford (Assistant House Steward, Shaw’s
Corner) was the only recipient of both an ISS Travel Grant and a Bryden Scholarship
at the Summer Shaw Symposium, where Mary Christian also received an ISS
Travel Grant.. Travel grants to the Chicago Shaw
Symposium (16-17 May) were awarded to Mary Christian (Indiana U), Sarah
Warren-Riley (Illinois State U) and Gustavo Rodríguez Martín (Universidad de Extramadura, Spain). Congratulations to all! Pictured
here (L to R) are ISS President Michael O’Hara, Lizzie Dunford, and Mary
Christian. |
||
|
|
||
|
As he has for the last
seven years, Recording Secretary John McInerney asked for nominations for
Membership Secretary and Recording Secretary,
the winners by default being Sharon Klassen for Recording Secretary
and Mary Christian for Membership Secretary.
Their three-year terms begin on January 1, 2015 and conclude on Dec.
31, 2017. Our congratulations to both
and our thanks for their willingness to serve.
|
||
|
DEPARTING OFFICERS: THANKS FOR THE SERVICE |
||
|
One of the
side-benefits of serving in an ISS office is that you get to meet some
wonderful people, and here’s some proof:
A proposal for amendments to the ISS Bylaws was
presented to the Executive Committee and then to the entire membership, and a
majority of those voting approved the changes as of November 17, 2014. A restated “Articles & Bylaws” can be
found at https://shawsociety.org/ISS-Articles&Bylaws.htm and can always be reached from a link on the members
page. |
||
|
FROM ISS TREASURER R. F.
DIETRICH |
||
|
In 2013,
ISS income was three parts donations and one-part membership fees, a record
for donations. Among them was a very generous bequest from Sid Albert
and the funding of a special travel fund for the General Editor of SHAW by
John Pfeiffer, and for both we are very grateful. 2014 didn’t
quite match 2013 in donations, but it was also a good year. It has
long been the custom in the theater to refer to people who contribute to the
enterprise beyond the going price as “angels.” While it may be true, as
John Tanner says, that "In Heaven an angel is nobody in particular”
(Maxims for Revolutionists: Greatness), we are clearly still on a planet
where “angelic behavior” of this sort deserves notice. Yes, we appreciate
that everyone contributes what they can afford, and we are thankful to
everyone who pays the annual membership fee and/or orders journals, but “Shaw
Bizness” needs the exceptional contribution as well
as the standard in order to pursue its goals of encouraging the young with
travel grants and of making Shaw’s works and the study of Shaw available to
as many as possible. So here we wish to pay special notice to those who
have made it possible for the ISS to “go beyond.” And that the ISS has
now completed its 11th year also speaks to how important our “angels” have
been to sustaining “the march” to this point. Below
is the list, year by year, of those whose “angelic” contribution to the ISS
has gotten them written in the ISS Book of the Life Force by the Recording Shaw
(with horns holding up his halo). These lists are linked as well from
the ISS members page. Please take a few
moments to view and acknowledge. 2014:https://shawsociety.org/2014-Members-Plus-List.htm 2013:
https://shawsociety.org/2013-Members-Plus-List.htm 2012: https://shawsociety.org/2012-Members-Plus-List.htm 2011: https://shawsociety.org/2011-Members-Plus-List.htm 2010:
https://shawsociety.org/2010-Members-Plus-List.htm 2009:
https://shawsociety.org/2009-Members-Plus-List.htm 2008:
https://shawsociety.org/2008-Members-Plus-List.htm 2007:
https://shawsociety.org/2007-Members-Plus-List.htm 2006:
https://shawsociety.org/2006-Members-Plus-List.htm 2005:
https://shawsociety.org/2005-Members-Plus-List.htm 2004:
https://shawsociety.org/Founding-Members-Plus.htm And
now for the point of all this: it’s time to renew your ISS membership. Just go to https://shawsociety.org/2015-membership-form.htm
and email, snail mail, or PayPal your renewal. P.O. Box 728, Odessa, FL 33556-0728 for
the snail mail, dietrich@usf.edu
for the email, and dietrich@shawsociety.org
for PayPal. Many Thanks!! |
||
|
|
||
|
Produced by ISS Director of
Publications Michel Pharand & ISS Webmaster R. F. Dietrich |
||
|
|
||
|
Webmaster: dietrich@usf.edu (please report any links that don’t work) |
