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DTSTAMP:20260523T075844Z
UID:b8f63f6a-d791-4649-a183-6145cc693a37
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260625
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260523
DESCRIPTION:Jun 25 - Jul 19\, 2026\nWhen the New Orleans native Courtney Br
 yan was still in high school\, she got her first taste of contemporary ope
 ra in the form of André Previn and Philip Littel’s A Streetcar Named De
 sire\, after Tennessee Williams. In her first foray into composing opera\,
  she\, too\, ventures into the Williams funhouse of Southern Gothic fever 
 dreams. For many of the playwright’s fans\, Suddenly Last Summer found i
 ts definitive form on celluloid\, shaped by the masterly hand of Joseph L.
  (All About Eve\, Cleopatra) Mankiewicz. Katherine Hepburn (who loathed hi
 m) appeared as the iron-butterfly matriarch Violet Venable\, who is foreve
 r nattering about “my son Sebastian\,” who is no longer living\, and t
 ends “well-fed” Venus flytraps in a conservatory she calls “The Jung
 le.” Elizabeth Taylor (later Mankiewicz’s Cleopatra) played Catherine 
 Holly\, the poor relation who was there when Sebastian met his horrific fa
 te and won’t shut up about it. A little slice of the scalpel to Catherin
 e’s frontal lobe ought to quiet her down\, Violet reasons\, dangling a m
 illion-dollar check for a new wing at the hospital under the nose of a neu
 rosurgeon she wants to perform it. Daniel Fish\, whose astonishing Tony-wi
 nning revival of Oklahoma! originated at the Fisher Center\, returns to di
 rect. Bryant’s Catherine is Mikaela Bennett\, who has won acclaim in suc
 h diverse roles as Maria in West Side Story\, Rosasharn in Rick Lee Gordon
 ’s The Grapes of Wrath\, and as the learned and possibly heretical abbes
 s’s favorite novice in Sarah Kirkland Snider’s medievalist Hildegard. 
 Though a diva\, Bryan’s Mrs. Venable must land her “arias” the way s
 he does in the play—not in song but by means of the spoken word. Count o
 n Tina Benko—nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award as Jacqueline Kennedy 
 Onassis in the Nobel Prize-winning Elfriede Jelinek’s monodrama Jackie
 —to deliver just the right snap.
LOCATION:Fisher Center at Bard College\, 60 Manor Ave\, Annandale-On-Hudson
 \, NY 12504\, United States
SUMMARY:Suddenly Last Summer\, by Courtney Bryan
URL;VALUE=TEXT:https://airmail.news/arts-intel/events/suddenly-last-summer-
 by-courtney-bryan
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