Issue #112: July 1, 2003

• Classic Canadian actor Christopher Plummer takes his Stratford Festival (Ontario, Canada) production of King Lear to Lincoln Center.  Opening on March 4 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater you can catch a great night of theater.

• London producer Kevin Wallace is jumping on the Lord of the Rings bandwagon and planning a lavish $18 million musical with a premiere to take place in early 2005.  Someone might want to tell him there was a production in the 1980s that toured long before the film frenzy landed.

• The 29th annual National Festival of the Arts wraps up in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, South Africa on July 5.  The festival showcases five new works by South African playwrights.  One highlight this year was the stage adaptation of Alan Paton's novel Cry the Beloved Country.  Other works being staged; Auditioning Angels by Pieter-Dirk Uys, Molora by Yael Farber, Madiba Magic by Janice Honeyman and Tailormade by Mothobi Mutloatsi.  Let's hope they don't keep these works to themselves—it would be great to have some new works staged in the western world from such an interesting part of the globe.

• Another column with another great loss for the world of theatre.  London, Ontario (Canada) native Hume Cronyn died on June 15 at the age of 91.  His contribution to the stage is encyclopedic in which he played everything from the works of Shakespeare, Chekhov, and Albee to Beckett.  His most notable Broadway roles were in A Delicate Balance, The Gin Game and Coward in Two Keys.  He was nominated four times for a Tony then in 1964 he won as Polonius in Richard Burton's Hamlet.   His film roles were equally as memorable with an Oscar nomination in 1944 for his role in Seventh Cross with Spencer Tracy.  Forty years later in his 70's we saw him in the popular movies Cocoon and Cocoon: The Return.  But it was his role as husband to equally celebrated stage legend Jessica Tandy to whom he was married for 52 years.  Sadly Ms. Tandy died in 1994 breaking up the incomparable couple who performed together on stage and in film throughout their marriage. Prior to Jessica's death in 1994 Cronyn and Tandy each received a Tony for lifetime achievement.  It was on that occasion     Cronyn reflected, "I'm touched that somebody should have seen fit to give us this award.  I like making television shows.  I like making films.  But my heart belongs to theatre, which is really home and mother."  Thank you for touching us, Hume Cronyn.