Category: people

“It’s amusing to note that the notoriously pugnacious Mr. Laurents, who never met a score he didn’t want to settle, was involved in two of the most fruitful (if often fraught) collaborations in musical-theater history.”

The CUNY board had blocked an honorary degree for playwright Tony Kushner. “Freedom of thought and expression is the bedrock of any university worthy of the name. But it is not right for the board to consider politics in connection with the award of honorary degrees except in extreme cases not presented by the facts here.”

Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld “said he was surprised to get enough support from other trustees to block the Kushner degree. He had thought, he said, that he was going to register his dissent for the record and move on.”

“Although Mr. Sáábato, a physicist who turned to literature in his 30s, wrote just three … he was as revered in Argentina as his contemporary and countryman Jorge Luis Borges. … But many people know [him] best for his work in helping Argentina heal when democracy was restored in 1983 after seven years of military dictatorship.”

“[A]lthough he was a familiar face on television, playing majors, judges and elderly peers … he was linked with radical theatre work at the Royal Court and the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he was one of the earliest associate artists.”

“The vote on Monday evening came after a CUNY trustee said that Mr. Kushner had disparaged the State of Israel in past comments, a characterization that the writer attacked on Wednesday.”

“Every time I do a play I feel physically sick.. Sometimes I throw up. It’s the kind of nerves you can’t control. It’s almost insulting. You think: ‘What is that? How old are you? And you’re still frightened?!’ It’s the fear of judgment. You always fear that somehow you’re going to be found out.”

“For a guy who just wrote a whole book about the myriad catastrophes that could befall the United States in the next 20 years, Albert Brooks says he’s not interested in end-of-the-world scenarios and, more to the point, he’s too nervous to contemplate them.”

“One of China’s most famous public intellectuals, Chen [Danqing] is not so much an activist as an eloquent and ambivalent dissenter. He criticizes the party’s grasp on history and expression and belittles China’s other artists for refusing to speak out. … “

Her grandfather, George Lansbury, was a founder of the Labour Party and its leader fron 1932 to 1935. “The actress remembers watching her grandfather speak at the Albert Hall. ‘The whole place was just transfixed. It was really something. It had a stunning effect on me’.”