Theater Voices to Present Shanley Play

Theater Voices of the Capital Region, an Albany based theatrical troupe, will present John Patrick Shanley's "Defiance" (2006), a tale of race relations set at the Marine Corps' training facility at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina in 1971.

"Defiance" director Yvonne Perry was inspired to choose the play after meeting playwright John Patrick Shanley, at UAlbany last spring to present the annual Burian Lecture , sponsored by the Department of Theatre and cosponsored by the NYS Writers Institute. The visit was funded through the generosity of the Jarka and Grayce Susan Burian Endowment.

Grayce Burian, pictured here with Shanley, also sits on the board of Theater Voices.

A Youtube clip of Shanley's visit may be viewed here.

Read More......

TU interview with John Patrick Shanley

Elizabeth Mair's interview with John Patrick Shanley, who visits the Writers Institute on Wednesday April 6, appeared in Sunday's Times Union.

Picture: Shanley with Meryl Streep at a screening party for Doubt at the Motion Pictures Academy.

Mair /Times Union: You've said that your childhood in the Bronx involved "constant fistfights." Why was that?

A: It was an Irish and Italian neighborhood -- probably more Irish than Italian -- and the Irish like to fight.

Q: Yourself included?

A: I was in fistfights from the time that I was 6 years old. Usually a couple of times a week. It was like a job.

Q: What would you fight for?

A: I was fighting to defend myself, for the most part. I didn't start spontaneously hitting people until later. Until I was about 15, I had to be hit first.

Q: In your Oscar acceptance for "Moonstruck," you thanked all the people who had ever punched or kissed you --

A: "Everybody who ever punched me or kissed me, and everybody who I ever punched or kissed."

Q: I understand the kiss part, but why the punch part?

A: Well, it's contact. It's somebody reaching out to you -- or for you. And it's a form of sincerity. More.

Read More......

John Patrick Shanley Visits Tomorrow

Here's a great New York Times profile from 2008 of Oscar and Tony-winner John Patrick Shanley (who visits the Writers Institute, Wednesday April 6, 2011): "A former marine and the son of an Irish immigrant father from County Westmeath, he has a lot of other prosaic credits in his résumé, including working as a locksmith, a bartender and an elevator operator. He is, in conversation and approach, very much a product of the kind of hard-knocks Roman Catholic primary school that frames the moral dilemma of 'Doubt.'" More. Shanley will deliver the 15th Annual Burian Lecture cosponsored by the Theatre Department and the Jarka and Grayce Burian Endownment.

Read More......