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Wilmington, North Carolina once had a thriving Black middle class and an elected interracial government. In 1898 white supremacists used violence to overthrow that government, kill Black residents and drive many others from the city.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
| La Plume de Ma Tante | |
|---|---|
 1960 playbill | |
| Music | Gerard Calvi |
| Lyrics | Ross Parker Francis Blanche |
| Book | Robert Dhéry |
| Productions | 1958 Broadway |
La Plume de Ma Tante is a 1955 musical comedy, written, devised, and directed by Robert Dhéry, with music by Gérard Calvi, and English lyrics by Ross Parker. The play consisted of a number of short sketches in English, French, and pantomime, satirizing French society.[1]
It first opened in 1955 at the Garrick Theatre, London, and closed after a run of two and a half years. It then transferred to the USA.
On Broadway, it was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Musical, and in three other categories, winning the 1959 Special Tony Award. Pierre Olaf was one of the show's leading actors.[2]
It opened on Broadway at the Royale Theater on November 11, 1958 and closed on December 17, 1960 after a total of 835 performances. Subsequently, the show toured to Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco during 1961.
| Year | Award | Category | Nominee | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1959 | Tony Award | Best Musical | Nominated | |
| Best Direction of a Musical | Robert Dhéry | Nominated | ||
| Best Conductor and Musical Director | Gershon Kingsley | Nominated | ||
| Special Tony Award | Contribution to the Theatre | The Cast | Won | |
| New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards[3] | Best Musical | Gerard Calvi, Ross Parker, Francis Blanche and Robert Dhéry | Won | |
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
La Plume de Ma Tante is a 1955 musical comedy, written, devised, and directed by Robert Dhéry, with music by Gérard Calvi, and English lyrics by Ross Parker. The play consisted of a number of short sketches in English, French, and pantomime, satirizing French society. It first opened in 1955 at the Garrick Theatre, London, and closed after a run of two and a half years. It then transferred to the USA. On Broadway, it was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Musical, and in three other categories, winning the 1959 Special Tony Award. Pierre Olaf was one of the show's leading actors. It opened on Broadway at the Royale Theater on November 11, 1958 and closed on December 17, 1960 after a total of 835 performances. Subsequently, the show toured to Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco during 1961.
La plume de ma tante ("the quill of my aunt") is a phrase attributed to elementary French language instruction (possibly as early as the 19th century) and used as an example of grammatically correct phrases with limited practical application that are sometimes taught in introductory foreign language texts. As Life magazine said in 1958, "As every student knows, the most idiotically useless phrase in a beginner's French textbook is la plume de ma tante (the quill of my aunt)." The phrase is also used to refer to something deemed completely irrelevant. The term lent its name to the musical play La Plume de Ma Tante, which won a Tony Award in 1959. The phrase is also used in teaching and remembering the sounds of the French vowel a; La plume de ma tante contains three instances of a that use two different pronunciations. Other limited-use phrases used as pronunciation guides include: Le petit bébé est un peu malade ("the little baby is slightly ill"), which contains six variants of e, and Un bon vin blanc ("a good white wine"), which contains four nasal vowels. The phrase's French converse is "my tailor is rich", the first in the original English guide from French publisher Assimil. The similar, more recent phrase "Where is Brian? Brian is in the kitchen" was popularised by comedian Gad Elmaleh.
The Garrick Theatre is a West End theatre, located in Charing Cross Road, in the City of Westminster. It is named after the stage actor David Garrick. The theatre was built for and owned by the dramatist W. S. Gilbert and originally leased to the actor-manager John Hare. It opened in 1889 with Hare's production of The Profligate, a new play by Arthur Wing Pinero; another Pinero play, The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith, was an early success, scandalising some audience members. After Hare retired from management in 1895 another actor-manager, Arthur Bourchier, ran and starred at the Garrick for fifteen years. Bourchier and his wife, Violet Vanbrugh, presented plays by a range of contemporary authors including J. M. Barrie, Anthony Hope, Rutland Barrington, Henry Arthur Jones and Alfred Sutro; they staged and starred in Gilbert's last full-length play The Fairy's Dilemma (1904) and also in The Merchant of Venice (1905) and a stage version of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (1911). After the First World War the theatre's fortunes ebbed. Some well-known performers appeared there including Edith Evans and Tallulah Bankhead, but by the 1930s there was an abortive plan to convert the building into a cinema. A long running success, Love on the Dole (1935–36), restored the profitability of the theatre. During and after the Second World War the house became associated with another actor-manager, Jack Buchanan, who took over the management in 1944 and appeared in several productions. Farce played an important part in the theatre's life during these years, with pieces by Vernon Sylvaine starring Robertson Hare and Alfred Drayton. Revues in the period featured Beatrice Lillie and Dora Bryan and a particularly long-running show called La Plume de ma Tante ran for 750 performances in 1955–56. In the 1960s, the farceur Brian Rix made the Garrick his London base and presented several long-running productions there. The theatre survived the threat of demolition to make way for a proposed development in Covent Garden, and in the 1970s stars appearing there included Alastair Sim and Patricia Routledge in a 1973 revival of Pinero's comedy Dandy Dick. The comedy No Sex Please, We're British transferred from the Strand Theatre and played at the Garrick from 1982 until 1986. As well as new plays the theatre staged revivals of plays by Bernard Shaw, Noël Coward and J. B. Priestley. Its presentations have varied from comedies and musicals to gay dramas including Bent to stand-up comedy from Frankie Howerd, to drag queens impersonating nuns. The theatre continues to present plays and musicals in the 21st century.
Colette Marie Claudette Brosset (21 February 1922 – 1 March 2007) was a French actress, writer and choreographer. She was married to actor Robert Dhéry, with whom she appeared onstage in La Plume de Ma Tante and Ah! Les belles bacchantes. She appeared on Broadway in 1959 in La Plume de Ma Tante, and was, along with the rest of the entire cast (Pamela Austin, Roger Caccia, Yvonne Constant, Genevieve Coulombel, Robert Dhéry, Michael Kent, Jean Lefevre, Jacques Legras, Michael Modo, Pierre Olaf, Nicole Parent, Ross Parker, Henri Pennec) awarded a Special Tony Award 1959 for contribution to the theatre.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →The Greenwood District.