Hades- A New Play

Fool’s Progress and Dramahound Productions are pleased to announce the world premiere of a one-act play by Anne Phelan, Hades.  It will be read on Saturday, February 13 at 4:40 and 6 PM at 440 Gallery, 440 Sixth Avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn.   Admission is free. 

The play was commissioned by Fool’s Progress Productions, and is inspired by Tom Bovo’s Merge photographs in the back space at 440 Gallery. It features Patrick Avella and Jacob Grigolia-Rosenbaum as Dante and Virgil.

Dante has been driven from his home in Florence, Mass.  Disillusioned, homeless and broke, he meets Virgil on the streets of Brooklyn. Virgil then proceeds to guide Dante through three circles of Hell in Park Slope and Gowanus where they encounter a murdering wife, a notorious Welsh traitor from King Arthur’s time and finally Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger, the murderer of Julius Caesar.  By the end of the play, Dante has begun to rebuild his spirit, and he and Virgil go off to further adventures. 

Dramahound Productions is happy to be back at 440 Gallery, for its fourth world premiere in conjunction with Fool’s Progress Productions.  Previous plays include The Mermaid Won’t Sing for Tom Bovo’s The Other Side of Summer, The Skull Beneath the Skin for Tom Bovo’s Genius Loci and Ellen Chuse’s Everyone in the Pool; and Did You Hear the One About the Carp Who Hailed a Taxi? for Tom Bovo’s New York.   

Directions:  To reach 440 Gallery, take the F, G, or R train to Fourth Avenue/Ninth Street.  718.499.0901

440gallery.com

Photo by Tom Bovo

The Lions' Birthday

On Monday. my friend Daniela and went to Celebrating 100 Years at the New York Public Library. I've spent many hours of the life in the Main Reading Room there, doing research and waiting for books and microfiche to come up from the stacks.
The exhibit has some books, but also a lot of stuff (ephemera, I guess you'd say). Malcolm X's diaries from his journey to Mecca, Katherine Cornell's make up box from 1947 (the base looks quite disgusting), a first edition of poems by Phillis Wheatley, a Gutenberg Bible, a 15th century Dante's Inferno, some of Jack Kerouac's notes, Virginia Woolf's walking stick, Pound's annotated manuscript of "The Wasteland," a whole bunch of dance video clips (I saw a Katherine Dunham piece from the '50s or '60s), unfortunately the audio part of the Performing Arts Library presentation wasn't working when I was there.
But by far the strangest thing there is Charles Dickens' letter opener. It consists of an ivory shaft, and a taxidermied cat's paw that originally belonged to his pet, Bob. The accompanying quote is something like "What is so great as the love of a cat?" I would say the love of a dog!
Photo lifted from www.neatorama.com.

Dante Alighieri

Week before last, I spent a lot of quality time with Dante (mostly Inferno), working on a new ten-minute play. I had read The Divine Comedy for a class in college (Dorothy Sayers' translation, which unfortunately is out of print). What impressed me in looking at Dante again is how modern (he was born in 1265) much of his work feels. Here is a brief selection of my favorite quotes from him. I will not attempt writing out the Italian, though pretty much everything sounds better in Italian.
The Inferno

When I had journeyed half our life's way
I found myself within a shadowed forest
for I had lost the path that does not stray. Canto I, lines 1-3.

There is no greater sorrow
Than to be mindful of the happy time
In misery. Canto V, lines 121-123.

He listens well who takes notes. Canto XV, line 99.

Paradiso

Thou shalt prove how salt is the taste
Of another man's bread and how hard
Is the way and down another man's stairs. Canto XVII, lines 58-60

The night that hides hings from us. Canto XXIII, line 3.