Winter Park Institute January 2011 Events

The Winter Park Institute at Rollins College is preparing for its third season of seminars, lectures, readings, master classes, performances, open discussions and exhibits. All events are free and open to the public. For more detailed information about each event, call 407-691-1995 or visit their site.

Jan. 5: Whose Story Is It?: From Page to Stage
Arlene Hutton | 7 p.m. | Annie Russell Theatre, Rollins College
Playwright Arlene Hutton is the author of Letters to Sala, The Nibroc Trilogy and As It Is in Heaven. Her award-winning plays have been produced around the world, including Off-Broadway, in London and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. She will discuss the creative process of evolving text to script as it relates to her latest work Letters to Sala, an adaptation from Ann Kirschner’s book, Sala’s Gift: My Mother’s Holocaust Story.

Jan. 18: Present at the Creation: Three Visits to a Creator’s Workshop—Writing a Biography
Terry Teachout (Wall Street Journal) | 7pm | Bush Auditorium, Rollins College
Terry Teachout, drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the author of acclaimed biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine and H.L. Mencken, is working simultaneously on three creative projects—each in a different medium. In this series of public presentations, he’ll show how a biography, an opera libretto and a play move from conception to completion. Teachout started writing his sixth book, Black Beauty: A Life of Duke Ellington, in the spring of 2010. The finished manuscript is due in 2013. What happens between now and then? In this exclusive progress report on the writing of Black Beauty, Teachout takes you inside his workshop and tells the inside story of how he is sculpting the public and private lives of a great artist into a large-scale narrative biography.

Jan. 25: Present at the Creation: Three Visits to a Creator’s Workshop—Making an Opera
Terry Teachout (Wall Street Journal) | 7pm | Tiedtke Concert Hall, R.D. Keene Hall, Rollins College
Terry Teachout, drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the author of acclaimed biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine and H. L. Mencken, is working simultaneously on three creative projects—each in a different medium. In this series of public presentations, he’ll show how a biography, an opera libretto and a play move from conception to completion. In 2009, the Santa Fe Opera premiered The Letter, an opera by Teachout and Pulitzer-winning composer Paul Moravec based on W. Somerset Maugham’s 1927 play. Now the two men are collaborating on Danse Russe, a backstage comedy about the creation of The Rite of Spring that will be premiered by Philadelphia’s Center City Opera Theater in the spring of 2011. In collaboration with the music department of Rollins College, Teachout presents a sneak preview of excerpts from Danse Russe and talks about the challenge of writing his first original opera libretto.

Jan. 26: Greg Dawson – From Ukraine to Julliard: A Piano Prodigy’s Holocaust Odyssey
Greg Dawson | 7pm | Bush Science Center – Auditorium, Rollins College
Greg Dawson was nearly 30 years old when his mother, Zhanna, first told him of her miraculous escape from a death march in Ukraine and a four-year journey of survival, serving as an entertainer for Nazis who did not know she was Jewish. Dawson and his mother will discuss and answer questions about Hiding in the Spotlight, Dawson’s account of her remarkable story, which also sheds light on the little-known history of the Holocaust in Ukraine. The program includes a 17-minute film by the author’s wife, Candy, of their journey to Ukraine to do research for the book.

Jan. 29: How to Reconcile Theatre and Documentary
Eric Nightengale (director) | 19pm | Fred Stone Theater, Rollins College
Eric Nightengale will discuss working with living playwrights and documentary-based scripts. That process involves collaboration with the author, the transformation of real people into characters and other inherent issues of this genre.