Wednesday, March 12, 2014Book Signing, 3:00 p.m.
Science Library, Room 340, University at Albany uptown campus
Grayce Susan Burian, actor, author, theatre
professor, and key figure of the UAlbany and Capital Region theater arts
communities, will sign copies of her new book, From Jerry to Jarka:
A Breezy Memoir of a Long, Peripatetic Marriage, about her
54-year marriage to Jarka Burian, the primary Western scholar of Czech theatre
and long-time Theatre Professor at UAlbany. Among other things, the book
recounts their many exciting sojourns in Czechoslovakia at various times over a
period of several decades, their friendships with Vaclav Havel and other
dissidents, and their first-hand experiences of political turmoil, invasion,
unrest, revolution and social change.
Full text of the event flyer:
Grayce Susan Burian
Grayce
Susan Burian, actor and theatre scholar, is the author of the new book, From
Jerry to Jarka: A Breezy Memoir of a Long, Peripatetic Marriage (2013),
about her 54-year marriage to Jarka Burian, the primary western scholar of
Czech theatre, and long-time Theatre Professor at the University at Albany.
Among other things, the memoir recounts the couple’s numerous extended stays in
Czechoslovakia (and later, the Czech Republic) over a period of several decades
from the 1960s to the 2000s, as that country experienced dramatic political
upheavals and cultural transformations.
After
spending long periods in Czechoslovakia throughout the 1960s, the Burians
happened to arrive in Prague just days after the Soviet Bloc invasion in 1968
and remained there during the course of that fateful year. In her memoir,
Grayce Burian bears witness to the determination of the Czech people— writing
about the student protests, the immolation of Jan Palach, and meetings with
dissident artists including Václav Havel that she and Burian experienced. Their
research travels also included other European countries and China, enabling
Grayce Burian to consider the different communist regimes in which they lived
as well as echoes of the Nazi occupation— a Jewish friend remembering her escape
from a Nazi camp, a young German struggling to reconcile his heritage, and the
Burians themselves staying in Hitler’s private suite in Wrocław, Poland.
The Burians were also in Prague immediately following the 1989 Velvet
Revolution and were ideally placed to view the changes, good and bad, in
process. In 2002, they were living in Old Town when the Vltava flooded,
devastating large parts of Prague.
The
book also chronicles the Burians’ experiences as actors in New York City (where
they met while performing in an off-Broadway play in the 1950s), their long
teaching careers in Albany and Schenectady, and their extensive involvement in
helping to build the theatre community of the Capital Region.
Grayce
Burian earned her B.A. (1963) and M.A. (1964) in Theatre from the University at
Albany. She is a Professor Emerita at Schenectady County Community College,
where she served for 21 years as director of the Theatre Program, which she
founded and nurtured into one of the most successful two-year theatre programs
in New York State. She has also taught theatre courses at the University at
Albany, The College of Saint Rose and Hudson Valley Community College. At
UAlbany, she sits on the Executive Board of the Emeritus Center, and also
serves as that organization’s Hospitality Director. She also serves as a member
of the Board of Directors of the community theatre group, Theater Voices.
In
order to advance the study and celebration of theatre in the Capital Region,
Grayce and her husband founded the Jarka & Grayce Susan Burian Endowment,
which funds the annual Burian Lecture Series of the New York State Writers
Institute and the University at Albany Department of Theatre. Beginning in
1997, this yearly event has brought leading scholars and practitioners of the art
of the theatre to the UAlbany campus. Past visitors have included Colman
Domingo, John Sayles, John Patrick Shanley, Rita Moreno, A. R. Gurney, Michael
Mayer, Wallace Shawn, Ruby Dee, Harold Gould, and many others. Tony-winning
playwright Christopher Durang is this year’s featured lecturer (March 10,
2014).
The
late Jarka Burian, who taught at UAlbany from 1955 to 1993, was the author of
numerous scholarly works, including the award-winning book The Scenography
of Josef Svoboda, a seminal study of the work of one of the 20th century’s
most influential stage designers, and of the landmark study, Modern Czech
Theatre: Reflector and Conscience of a Nation (2000).
For
more information, contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620
