Author: Liam Otten

First Stage Competition entry, 1947The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial — popularly known as the St. Louis Gateway Arch — is the tallest monument in the United States and an icon of modern architecture, its great steel arc embodying strength, elegance and simplicity. Yet creation of the Arch was anything but simple. This spring the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts will explore that complex history with the exhibition and symposium On the Riverfront: St. Louis and The Gateway Arch. Held in conjunction with Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, On the Riverfront will focus on the people, events and conditions that culminated in the 1947-48 competition from which Eero Saarinen’s design was chosen, as well as the monument’s subsequent construction and its place in American architecture.

Schedule of events and participant biographies.

*The Spy*The price of glory. The brutality of war. A lawless free-fire zone brimming with loyalists and revolutionaries. In February two powerhouses of American theater, The Guthrie Theater and The Acting Company, will join forces to present a pair of adventure classics at Washington University’s Edison Theatre. On Feb. 13 director Davis McCallum will lead a cast of 12 in William Shakespeare’s epic King Henry V. Then, on Feb. 14, John Miller-Stephany, associate artistic director of the Guthrie, will direct Jeffrey Hatcher’s world premiere adaptation of James Fenimore Cooper’s The Spy.

Johannes Von MoltkeRecent blockbuster films and “television events” devoted to World War II and its aftermath have claimed to break new ground by breaking taboos on the representation of German suffering, yet the work of German writer and director Alexander Kluge predates these developments by decades. On Jan. 27 Johannes von Moltke, professor of screen arts and cultures at the University of Michigan, will speak on “Confusion of Feelings: War and Emotion in the Films of Alexander Kluge” as part of the Center for the Humanities’ 2009 Faculty Fellows’ Lecture and Workshop Series.

Carolyn ForchéPoet Carolyn Forché, the visiting Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature in Washington University’s Writing Program in Arts & Sciences, will read from her work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 22. Known as a “poet of witness,” Forché is the author of four books of poetry, including Gathering The Tribes, The Country Between Us, The Angel of History and Blue Hour.

David Kilper/WUSTL Photo ServicesSathya Sridharan as HamletFor many actors Hamlet is the Mt. Everest of roles: a four-hour, 3,000-line trek to be approached only at the height of one’s professional powers. As a result many productions feature leads — from Sir Laurence Olivier and Sir John Gielgud to Mel Gibson and Kenneth Branagh — who are well into middle age. Which is a fundamental misreading of the text, argues Henry I. Schvey, Ph.D., professor of drama in the Performing Arts Department (PAD), who will direct a new production Feb. 13 to 22.

Karen Butler, Ph.D., has been appointed assistant curator for collections at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. The appointment is effective January 2, 2009. Butler is currently the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Matisse Studies at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, PA, where she also serves as an adjunct lecturer in art history at the University of Pennsylvania. Her primary research interests are early- and mid-20th-century American and European art — areas in which the Kemper Art Museum has particularly strong holdings.

Ron Steele*Masked Marvels & Wondertales*A high-kicking giant. A clumsy cowpoke. A grumpy, pipe-smoking trout fishing beside an imaginary stream. Welcome to Masked Marvels & Wondertales, the eye-popping one-man variety show by Michael Cooper, the virtuoso storyteller, mask-maker and mime. In January Cooper will bring his colorful cast of characters to St. Louis for a performance sponsored by Washington University’s Edison Theatre.

Since its publication in 1960, Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” has become the best-selling novel of all time and is perhaps the most widely read book exploring race in the United States. In January, Edison Theatre will join forces with Metro Theater Company, St. Louis’ foremost professional troupe for young people, to stage an […]

In January, “To Kill a Mockinbird” will serve as centerpiece of a National Endowment for the Arts’ Big Read program. Coordinated by Washington University, the program will feature dozens of lectures, readings, art exhibits, theater productions, book discussions, film festivals and other events exploring the themes of Harper Lee’s novel.