Actor Aidan Quinn on how Dostoyevsky changed his life and made him a better performer. ℘℘℘ My father was an English teacher, and my family moved back and forth between Ireland and the United States. In my house, you couldn’t go anywhere without tripping over books by Beckett, O’Casey, Yeats, and all the other great Irish writers. When I was young, however, I was more focused … [Read more...] about The World Is Just A Book Away
Art and Literature
Eimear McBride Takes on Fellowship at Samuel Beckett Research Centre
Award-winning Irish novelist Eimear McBride (right) has been named the inaugural recipient of the University of Reading Samuel Beckett Research Center Creative Fellowship, which provides exclusive access to Beckett’s archives. McBride, whose debut novel A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing won the Goldsmiths Prize in 2013 and the 2014 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, will research … [Read more...] about Eimear McBride Takes on Fellowship at Samuel Beckett Research Centre
Reading West Cork
A trip to the West Cork Literary Festival turns into an unexpected and inspiring look at Bantry Bay and the people who call it home. In the words of Man Booker Prize-winner Anne Enright, “Ireland is a series of stories that have been told to us.” For me, Enright’s words couldn’t have rung truer. My father’s stories of growing up in Country Cork, told to me as a child, had the … [Read more...] about Reading West Cork
Sons of Our Shakespeare
The tragic story of Eugene O’Neill’s sons, both of whom died by suicide. A four-time Pulitzer Prize winner and 1936 Nobel laureate, playwright Eugene O’Neill has reigned as the undisputed Irish American heavyweight champion of drama. His private life, however, was far less enviable than his career trajectory. At age 23, while living in a rooming house on Manhattan’s Fulton … [Read more...] about Sons of Our Shakespeare
Review: "Oscar" Runs Wilde at Opera Philadelphia
A new opera dealing with the trials and imprisonment of the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde made its East Coast debut this past February. It was put on at the charmingly lavish Opera Philadelphia by composer and co-librettist Theodore Morrison and English opera director John Cox, a year following its debut in Sante Fe, New Mexico in 2013. Wilde’s plays bursted with wit, … [Read more...] about Review: "Oscar" Runs Wilde at Opera Philadelphia