Christopher Durang and Grayce Burian last night

Here's a photo of 2013 Tony Award-winning playwright Christopher Durang and Grayce Burian at
the 18th Annual Burian Lecture last night.

Durang cracked up the audience with (among other things) a reading of excerpts from a new parody of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie.

The Burian Lecture is funded by Grayce Burian through the Jarka & Grayce Susan Burian Endowment.  (Thank you Grayce for another lovely evening!).

 

For more about the Burian Lecture: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/burian_lectures.html

 

Weather willing, on Wednesday (tomorrow), March 12, 2014,  Grayce Burian herself will sign copies of her new book, From Jerry to Jarka: A Breezy Memoir of a Long, Peripatetic Marriage, at 3:00 p.m. in Science Library Room 340, on the UAlbany Uptown Campus.

 

More about Grayce and her book signing here:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/burian_grayce14.html

 

 

 

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Christopher Durang in the Times Union

Steve Barnes profiles playwright and humorist Christopher Durang in Sunday's Times Union. Durang visits the Writers Institute today!

Picture: Durang accepting his 2013 Tony for "Best Play" at the Tony Award ceremonies.

From the Times Union: 

The playwright Christopher Durang had an epiphany while making up new lyrics for a nursery rhyme in his 1983 play "Baby with the Bathwater."

"When I finished, I realized they were," he says, pausing, "nice I thought, 'Oh, that's oddly positive for me.'"

Durang, who's written comedies including "Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You" (1979), "The Actor's Nightmare" and "Beyond Therapy" (both 1981), "The Marriage of Bette and Boo" (1985), "Laughing Wild" (1987) and "Betty's Summer Vacation" (1999), isn't known for nice. He's known for outrageous and absurd and biting, for sure, but nice? That surprised him.

More in the TU:  http://www.timesunion.com/entertainment/article/It-s-all-worked-out-quite-nicely-5294553.php#photo-5988188

More about Durang's visit today:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/durang_chris14.html

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Our Poet Laureate of the Absurd-- Christopher Durang

Christopher Durang, who visits us on Monday 3/10, is crowned "Poet Laureate of the Absurd" in a New York Observer review of his 2009 play, Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them.

"It’s very good news that Christopher Durang, our Poet Laureate of the Absurd, has written a smashing new play. Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them at the Public Theater is a black farce that’s essentially about, well, torture, and a peculiar brand of American paranoia and bigotry—and I haven’t had such fun at the theater since the recent revival of Mr. Durang’s fable about his own dysfunctional childhood, The Marriage of Bette and Boo."

More in the Observer:  http://observer.com/2009/04/im-tickled-by-torture-durang-deals-serious-comedy/

More about Durang's visit:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/durang_chris14.html

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