A Matter of Gravity

Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center Celebrated in October

On Sept. 6 some 1,500 visitors from all over the North East Corridor experienced the opening of the new Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center. The building, which dates to 1911, was once home to the Old Saybrook Musical and Dramatic Club. In a $5.7 million dollar renovation, the building was restored and named in honor of the late Broadway and screen star Katharine Hepburn. (more...)

DePaul University Celebrates 100th Anniversary of Reskin Theatre

The Theatre School at DePaul University is delighted to announce that this coming December 31, 2010, will mark the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Merle Reskin Theatre (formerly The Blackstone Theatre). The Beaux-Arts style Blackstone Theatre, which was designed by Chicago architects Marshall and Fox, opened its doors just off of Michigan Avenue in the South Loop on New Years' Eve of 1910. In the course of the past century it has changed owners, names, addresses, audiences, and has stayed a hub of theatrical arts in a changing neighborhood and city. It faced many noteworthy changes in entertainment, including the introduction of the radio, television and film industries. (more...)

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center has acquired Hepburn's personal collection of thousands of pages of notes, journals, photographs, cast lists, scripts, contracts, fan letters and other documentation relating to her important but perhaps lesser-known theatrical career. This collection of Katharine Hepburn's personal papers is being made public for the first time. (more...)

Katharine Hepburn Theater Exhibition Opens 6/10 at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

The personal theatrical papers of Katharine Hepburn, which were acquired by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in 2007, will be on view for the first time in the new library exhibition, Katharine Hepburn: In Her Own Files, opening Wednesday, June 10. Her long and rich theater career is documented through typescripts (some, like the script for Coco, annotated in Hepburn?s hand), hundreds of photographs (publicity shots and formal portraits, as well as informal snapshots and rehearsal candids), scrapbooks, promotional ephemera, and sixty years of correspondence (fan mail, congratulatory notes, and general letters from such notable friends and admirers as Judy Garland, Richard Burton, John Ford, Vivien Leigh, Peter O?Toole, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, and Jeremy Irons, among scores of others. She saved telegrams from her friends and from stage crews and even the cards that come with flower bouquets, including many signed ?Pot,? Hepburn?s pet name for long-time companion Spencer Tracy). The exhibition continues through Saturday, October 10, 2009 in the Vincent Astor Gallery of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, located on the Lincoln Center campus at 40 Lincoln Center Plaza. Admission is free. For exhibition information, call 212.870.1630 or visit the Library?s website at www.nypl.org/lpa. In conjunction with this exhibition, a series of Hepburn films based on stage plays will be screened on Saturday afternoons in July and August at the Library. (more...)

Katherine Hepburn to be Honored with 2010 Stamp

Legendary Actress Katharine Hepburn will be immortalized on a new series of postage stamps issued on May 12, 2010, as part of the Postal Service's Legends of Hollywood series. (more...)

With its production of Bus Stop, the Williamstown Theatre Festival is launching a tradition of dedicating the final performance of every season to the memory of late actor Christopher Reeve (more...)