Arts & Culture

© Disney/Pixar*Pixar Shorts*Washington University’s Center for the Humanities and Program in Film & Media Studies, both in Arts & Sciences, will host their Fifth Annual Children’s Film Symposium Friday and Saturday, Nov. 21 and 22. Presented in conjunction with Cinema St. Louis, the festival will feature five screenings as well as introductions and post-show discussions by a half-dozen of the films’ creators.

Eight faculty from the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences will present a showcase recital in conjunction with the Missouri Music Teachers Association’s (MMTA) annual instrumental and vocal competitive auditions.

The Jazz at Holmes Series will present two internationally reknowned musicians, pianist Elisabeth Harnik and saxophonist David Liebman, in free concerts Nov. 6 and 13.

David Kilper/WUSTL Photo Services*Boston Marriage*David Mamet is perhaps the most instantly recognizable playwright of his generation, known for terse, highly stylized and strategically crude plays — such as Glengarry Glen Ross (1984), Speed-the-Plow (1988) and Oleanna (1992) — that relentlessly dissect contemporary masculinity.This month Washington University’s Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will showcase another side of Mamet with Boston Marriage, a sharp and sometimes shocking drawing room comedy centered on a pair of genteel Victorian women.

Alla MaileyMichael PollanCelebrated food writer Michael Pollan will receive the Washington University Humanities Medal as part of “Celebrating Our Books, Recognizing Our Authors,” the university’s seventh annual faculty book colloquium. The biannual award is given to a distinguished scholar, writer or artist whose career merits special recognition for excellence and courage.

Acclaimed author Steve Stern, the Visiting Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature, will present a pair of events Nov. 13 and 20. Over the last quarter-century Stern has earned critical accolades for creating colorful characters that The New York Times says mine “the rich terrain of Eastern European Jewry.” His most recent novel is The Angel of Forgetfulness (2005), which the Washington Post praised as “touching, funny and dizzying.”

Mario LangElisabeth HarnikThe Jazz at Holmes Series will present two internationally reknowned musicians in free concerts Nov. 6 and 13. The Nov. 6 performance will feature Austrian pianist Elisabeth Harnik, perhaps best known for her piano improvisations. On Nov. 13 Jazz at Holmes will welcome legendary New York saxophonist David Liebman and his Quartet.

Eight faculty from the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences will present a showcase recital in conjunction with the Missouri Music Teachers Association’s (MMTA) annual instrumental and vocal competitive auditions. The annual competition — hosted this year by the Department of Music — will take place Nov. 6 to 9 in the department’s 560 Music Center. The faculty concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 8.

Courtesy photoOlympia DukakisLegendary actress Olympia Dukakis, the Academy Award-winning star of Moonstruck and Steel Magnolias, will present a concert reading of Rose, her hit one-woman Broadway show, as part of the Edison Theatre OVATIONS Series. Written by celebrated playwright Martin Sherman, the drama centers on an 80-year-old Holocaust survivor whose epic story spans the history of the 20th century.

Rendering of renovated children’s theater.A team of six graduate and undergraduate architecture students — led by graduate teaching assistant Ellen Leuenberger and including Denny Burke, Alexander Harner, Michael Heller, Rachel Kerr and June Kim — has won the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ Community Service Competition. The competition, which includes a $300 cash prize, centered on an abandoned 8,000-square-foot children’s theater located on the campus of St. Francis de Sales church, 2653 Ohio Ave. (63118), popularly known as “the Cathedral of South St. Louis.”