When I learned that 2 of the 6 productions being performed at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis
this season are about art and artists, I got inspired to do my research and write this post!
Can I get as many comments as I did for my top 20 list of art and artist movies?
this season are about art and artists, I got inspired to do my research and write this post!
Can I get as many comments as I did for my top 20 list of art and artist movies?
16 Plays about Art & Artists...
1. Art: a comedy, that raises questions about art and friendship, concerns three long-time friends, Serge, Marc, and Yvan. When Serge buys a large, expensive, completely white painting, Marc is horrified, and their relationship suffers considerable strain as a result of their differing opinions about what constitutes art. Yvan, caught in the middle of the conflict, tries to please both of them.
2. Basquiat: tells the story of the rise of youthful artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. Starting out as a street artist, living in Thompkins Square Park in a cardboard box, Jean-Michel is discovered by Andy Warhol and becomes a star. But success has a high price, and Basquiat pays with friendship, love, and eventually, his life.
3. bobrauschenbergamerica: imagines what would have been if Robert Rauschenberg unleashed his vision in three dimensions rather than two, A wild road trip through our American landscape — in a play made as one of America's greatest artists, Robert Rauschenberg, might have conceived it if he had been a
playwright instead of a painter: a collage of people and places and music and dancing, of love stories and picnics and business schemes and shootings and chicken jokes and golfing!
4. The Cradle Will Rock: a drama about theatre life in the 1930s during the times of the Great Depression, communism, fascism, unions, Hitler, and Mussolini, that features New York businessman Nelson Rockefeller, director Orson Welles, painter Diego Rivera, and William Randolph Hearst. The play focuses on the lives of several people during hard times in New York as many struggle to find their place in America and tells a pro-union story about lower class workers trying to survive in a growing power-hungry world.
5. Hotel Cassiopeia: American artist Joseph Cornell made wooden boxes filled with pocket watches,
coiled springs, maps of the stars, a forest of thimbles, parrots, seashells, broken glass, children's alphabet blocks, brightly colored balls, soap bubbles, whales' teeth, a colored lithograph of the moon in the night sky, star fish. How would it be if those boxes could speak? This play is about art, about America, about compassion and longing and loneliness and heartbreak.
6. Matisse's Self Portrait: An artist gets up in the morning, gets a cup of tea, walks into his studio, and despite all the bad reviews, and the other things that can go awry — lives happily ever after.
7. Occupant: a portrait of acclaimed sculptor Louise Nevelson and a quest to capture a charismatic and
complex artist and persona. What is the relationship between creator and creation? Who was Louise Nevelson? Only she knew.
8. Pandora’s Bell (Japanese): a play that incorporates the discovery of an ancient art object.
9. Picasso at the Lapiin Agile: Albert Einstein joins Picasso at a Paris café and their discussion on genius, science as well as the nature of art carries the plot.
10. Picasso's Masterpiece: In his studio in Montmartre, Pablo Picasso paints his masterpiece — Les
Demoiselles d'Avignon, the painting that many say gave birth to modern art — while his friends drop by and suggest that he throw the painting away.
11. Red: an account of the Mark Rothko’s two-year struggle to create a commissioned series of paintings for the Four Seasons Restaurant.
12. Restoration: about a Brooklyn art restorer given the chance to spruce up Michelangelo's David for its 500th birthday and revive her floundering career.
13. soot and spit: The world of James Castle, who made art not to get rich, not to get famous, not to be cool, but because he needed to. We see his drawings projected on the walls of the ice house that his family gave him as a place to work.
14. Stanley: This play explores the complicated life of British painter Stanley Spencer, a twentieth-century painter. Spencer married two different women, each of whom was a gifted painter in her own right. Much of the play revolves around his passionate attachment to both women.
15. Sunday in the Park with George: inspired by the life and work of 19th-century Impressionist painter Georges Seurat.
16. Under Construction: a collage of America today — scenes and songs and dances inspired by Norman Rockwell of the fifties, and scenes and songs and dances inspired by the installation artist of the present day, Jason Rhoades: Rockwell and Rhoades are juxtaposed side by side — then and now, the fifties and the present, the red states and the blue states, where we grew up and where we live today, a piece that is, like America, permanently under construction.
2. Basquiat: tells the story of the rise of youthful artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. Starting out as a street artist, living in Thompkins Square Park in a cardboard box, Jean-Michel is discovered by Andy Warhol and becomes a star. But success has a high price, and Basquiat pays with friendship, love, and eventually, his life.
3. bobrauschenbergamerica: imagines what would have been if Robert Rauschenberg unleashed his vision in three dimensions rather than two, A wild road trip through our American landscape — in a play made as one of America's greatest artists, Robert Rauschenberg, might have conceived it if he had been a
playwright instead of a painter: a collage of people and places and music and dancing, of love stories and picnics and business schemes and shootings and chicken jokes and golfing!
4. The Cradle Will Rock: a drama about theatre life in the 1930s during the times of the Great Depression, communism, fascism, unions, Hitler, and Mussolini, that features New York businessman Nelson Rockefeller, director Orson Welles, painter Diego Rivera, and William Randolph Hearst. The play focuses on the lives of several people during hard times in New York as many struggle to find their place in America and tells a pro-union story about lower class workers trying to survive in a growing power-hungry world.
5. Hotel Cassiopeia: American artist Joseph Cornell made wooden boxes filled with pocket watches,
coiled springs, maps of the stars, a forest of thimbles, parrots, seashells, broken glass, children's alphabet blocks, brightly colored balls, soap bubbles, whales' teeth, a colored lithograph of the moon in the night sky, star fish. How would it be if those boxes could speak? This play is about art, about America, about compassion and longing and loneliness and heartbreak.
6. Matisse's Self Portrait: An artist gets up in the morning, gets a cup of tea, walks into his studio, and despite all the bad reviews, and the other things that can go awry — lives happily ever after.
7. Occupant: a portrait of acclaimed sculptor Louise Nevelson and a quest to capture a charismatic and
complex artist and persona. What is the relationship between creator and creation? Who was Louise Nevelson? Only she knew.
8. Pandora’s Bell (Japanese): a play that incorporates the discovery of an ancient art object.
9. Picasso at the Lapiin Agile: Albert Einstein joins Picasso at a Paris café and their discussion on genius, science as well as the nature of art carries the plot.
10. Picasso's Masterpiece: In his studio in Montmartre, Pablo Picasso paints his masterpiece — Les
Demoiselles d'Avignon, the painting that many say gave birth to modern art — while his friends drop by and suggest that he throw the painting away.
11. Red: an account of the Mark Rothko’s two-year struggle to create a commissioned series of paintings for the Four Seasons Restaurant.
12. Restoration: about a Brooklyn art restorer given the chance to spruce up Michelangelo's David for its 500th birthday and revive her floundering career.
13. soot and spit: The world of James Castle, who made art not to get rich, not to get famous, not to be cool, but because he needed to. We see his drawings projected on the walls of the ice house that his family gave him as a place to work.
14. Stanley: This play explores the complicated life of British painter Stanley Spencer, a twentieth-century painter. Spencer married two different women, each of whom was a gifted painter in her own right. Much of the play revolves around his passionate attachment to both women.
15. Sunday in the Park with George: inspired by the life and work of 19th-century Impressionist painter Georges Seurat.
16. Under Construction: a collage of America today — scenes and songs and dances inspired by Norman Rockwell of the fifties, and scenes and songs and dances inspired by the installation artist of the present day, Jason Rhoades: Rockwell and Rhoades are juxtaposed side by side — then and now, the fifties and the present, the red states and the blue states, where we grew up and where we live today, a piece that is, like America, permanently under construction.
...and 1 opera!
The Moon and Sixpence: based on the life of the painter Paul Gauguin, tells the story of Charles Strickland, a middle-aged English stockbroker who abandons his wife and children abruptly to pursue his desire to become an artist.
Have a great beginning to your week!
Mary
Have a great beginning to your week!
Mary
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