The Shakespeare Society (Michael Sexton, Artistic Director) will present Lyrics by W. Shakespeare, an evening of songs set to lyrics by Shakespeare, presided over by former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, on Monday, September 15 at 6:30pm at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College, East 68 Street, between Park and Lexington Avenues. A limited number of tickets, priced at $25, are available from the Kaye box office at (212) 772-4448. For Shakespeare Society membership information, call 212-967-6802 or go to www.shakespearesociety.org.
From Thomas Arne and Vaughan Williams to Duke Ellington and
Stephen Sondheim, composers have long been drawn to Shakespeare's songs and poems for inspiration. One of the greatest living American poets as well as a passionate advocate for poetry, former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky will guide the audience through some of Shakespeare's finest lyrics, set to music by some of the world's greatest composers. Tony Award Winner
Michael Cerveris, Darius DeHaas, and
Carol Woods will perform.
Robert Pinsky's first two terms as United States Poet Laureate were marked by such visible dynamism, and such national enthusiasm in response, that the Library of Congress appointed him to an unprecedented third term. Throughout his career, Pinsky has been dedicated to identifying and invigorating poetry's place in the world. As Poet Laureate from 1997 - 2000, Robert Pinsky became a public ambassador for poetry, founding the Favorite Poem Project, in which thousands of Americans - of varying backgrounds, all ages, and from every state - shared their favorite poems. Pinsky believed that, contrary to stereotype, poetry had a vigorous presence in the American cultural landscape. The project sought to document that presence, giving voice to the American audience for poetry. The anthology Americans' Favorite Poems, which include letters from project participants, is in its eighteenth printing. The new anthology, An Invitation to Poetry, comes with a DVD featuring twenty-seven of the FPP video segments, as seen on PBS.
Elegant and tough, vividly imaginative, Pinsky's poems have earned praise for their wild musical energy and ambitious range. His book Gulf Music (FSG, fall 2007) is his seventh volume of poetry. His The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems 1966-1996 was a Pulitzer Prize nominee and received the Lenore Marshall Award and the Ambassador Book Award of the English Speaking Union. His most recent chapbook is entitled First Things to Hand (Sarabande, May 2006). Pinsky's books about poetry include Poetry and the World, nominated for the National Book Critics' Circle Award, The Sounds of Poetry, and more recently, Democracy, Culture and the Voice of Poetry. Pinsky contends that, though intimate, poetry addresses cultural needs by communicating a shared set of social meanings, a paradox that becomes part of his effort to demonstrate the complexity of American poetry.
Robert Pinsky's landmark, best-selling translation of The Inferno of Dante received the Los Angeles Times Book Award in poetry and the Howard Morton Landon Prize for translation. He is also co-translator of The Separate Notebooks, poems by Nobel Prize winner Czeslaw Milosz. Pinsky's prose book, The Life of David, is a lively retelling and examination of the David stories, narrating a wealth of legend as well as scripture.
The poetry editor for the online magazine Slate, for seven years Pinsky appeared regularly on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. He writes the weekly "Poet's Choice" column for the Washington Post. He was elected in 1999 to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Pinsky's poems appear in magazines such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly,The Threepenny Review, American Poetry Review, and frequently in The Best American Poetry anthologies. He teaches in the graduate writing program at Boston University. Robert Pinsky is also the winner of the PEN/Voelcker Award, the William Carlos Williams Prize, the Lenore Marshall, and the National Foundation for Jewish Culture's 2006 Jewish Cultural Achievement Award in Literary Arts. He is one of the few members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters to have appeared on "The Simpsons."
The Shakespeare Society is a not-for-profit membership organization presenting entertaining and challenging programs that combine stage performances by outstanding actors with illuminating commentary by noted Shakespearean writers, scholars, and directors. A fundamental belief of the founders of The Shakespeare Society is that enjoying and understanding Shakespeare begin in the classroom; therefore, a portion of the Society's membership dollars is used to support educational activities in New York City schools. Past participants in Shakespeare Society performances and events include Harold Bloom, F. Murray Abraham, Stephen Greenblatt,
Liev Schreiber,
Lynn Redgrave,
Ruben Santiago-Hudson,
Kathleen Chalfant,
Michael Cumpsty,
Jefferson Mays,
Marcia Gay Harden,
Patrick Stewart, Sir Peter Hall,
Derek Jacobi,
Philip Bosco, Marjorie Garber,
Ralph Fiennes, Ron Rosenbaum,
Richard Easton,
John Guare, and Claire Bloom.
The Shakespeare Society presents Lyrics by W. Shakespeare on Monday, September 15, at 6:30PM at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College (East 68th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues). A very limited number of tickets, priced at $25, will be available for purchase by non-members two weeks prior to the event. To purchase tickets or for ticket information, phone the Kaye Playhouse box office at 212 772-4448. For more information about the Shakespeare Society or Lyrics by W. Shakespeare, or to join The Shakespeare Society, phone 212 967-6802 or visit
www.shakespeareociety.org.
