A Farewell to Musical Theater Treasure and A.C.T. Performer Barbara Cook

-
By Taylor Steinbeck

Tony Award­–winning songstress, Barbara Cook, died at 89 on Tuesday. Lauded for her crystalline lyrical soprano voice and emotional storytelling, Cook was Broadway’s star ingénue in the 1950s. From the mid-1970s, her solo shows and concert performances cemented her status as one of the leading interpreters of musical theater standards, with the New York Times naming her “the Mother Earth of the American songbook.”

Barbara Cook in 2009. Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Cook appeared at A.C.T. in 2000 when her Tony Award–nominated cabaret act, Mostly Sondheim, was presented as a special New Year’s engagement. Playing at The Geary Theater for three nights, Mostly Sondheim showcased Cook’s rich vocals as she shared Stephen Sondheim’s classics with San Francisco audiences. Some of the numbers featured included “Not a Day Goes By,” “Happiness,” and “Losing My Mind.” In 2002, Sondheim told the Washington Post, “No one sings theater songs with more feeling for the music or more understanding of the lyrics than Barbara.” 

Cook’s prolific theater career spanned several decades, with her first gracing the Broadway stage for 1951’s Flahooley. She went on to win the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her role as Marian the Librarian in the 1957 hit The Music Man. Other notable credits were Candide (1956), The King and I (1960), and She Loves Me (1963). After a 39-year absence, she returned to the Great White Way for Sondheim on Sondheim (2010). The veteran Broadway actress was honored as a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2011.

Yesterday night, Broadway dimmed its marquee lights for one minute in Cook’s memory.

Popular posts from this blog

“To Be or Not to Be”: The Iconic Speech’s Origins, Interpretations, and Impact

-
Image
By A.C.T. Publications Staff The opening line of Hamlet ’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy is theater’s most iconic, most referenced quote. What’s less known is the famous speech’s history, with Hamlet ’s earliest publications offering varying versions of its language. Also questioned is its meaning—is Hamlet contemplating suicide or is he weighing the consequences of murder? Though definitive answers are unlikely to arise, the questions “To be or not to be” asks have kept audiences, scholars, and actors engaged for centuries. Hamlet ’ s "To be or not to be" speech as it appears in the three original editions of the play. Photo by Georgelazenby. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons. The first edition, or First Quarto (Q1), of Hamlet was published in 1603. Because the text is much shorter than later editions and its language is less poetic, it is nicknamed the “Bad Quarto” by scholars. “To be or not to be” in Q1 reads as: To be, or not to be—ay, there’s the point. To die,
Read more

The American Sound: The Evolution of Jazz

-
Image
By Cecilia Padilla There is nothing so uniquely American as jazz music. In its simplest form, jazz embodies the essence of the American people: bold and inventive. The improvisation of the jazz ensemble can even be seen as a metaphor for the American democratic ideal: musicians playing solos have the liberty to express themselves as long as they adhere to the overall structure of the tune—individual freedom but with responsibility to the group. The evolution of jazz music also carries with it the social development of our nation from slavery to the swinging songs of World War II. Musically, jazz contributed immensely to the way contemporary musicians approach instrumentation, composition, and vocal arrangements. It is difficult to find a popular tune today that does not derive from such jazz icons as Joe Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Thelonious Monk. Jazz is the great equalizer; for more than a hundred years, it has been the common ground between blacks and whites, me
Read more

Purely Pinteresque: The Elements of Pinter's Language

-
Image
By Taylor Steinbeck Most artists take years to establish their voice and style. This wasn’t the case for playwright Harold Pinter. His first West End play, The Birthday Party, showcases the elements of Pinter’s aesthetic that would later be evident throughout his 29 plays and 23 screenplays: the rhythm of colloquial language punctuated by pauses and silences, mysterious characters who rarely say what they mean, and the unsettling, yet witty juxtaposition of comedy and terror. Suspenseful and comical, familiar and foreign, disturbing and alluring, The Birthday Party is quintessential Pinter. Graphite drawing of Harold Pinter. By A.C.T. Senior Graphic Designer Brad Amorosino. Pinter is a playwright who uses the back-and-forth of everyday conversation to create conflict and shape power dynamics between characters. “My characters tend to use words not to express what they think or feel,” said Pinter in a 1995 speech, “but to disguise what they think or feel, to mask their actual
Read more