The First Drama Quartette

THURSDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 25, 1951 THE BROOKLYN INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES in association with PAUL GREGORY presents The First Drama Quartette Starring in Person · CHARLES BOYER - - DOll Juan CHARLES LAUGHTON - - The Devil CEDRIC HARDWICKE - - The Statue AGNES MOOREHEAD - - Donna Anna in "DON JUAN IN HELr' by Bernard Shaw DIRECTED BY CHARLES LAUGHTON Assistant to the Producer William Cottrell Company Manager Jerry O'Connell Press Representative Helen Richards Prodttction Assistant Robert Hulter Electrician Carl Callahan Miss Moorehead's Gown by Walter Plunkett EXCLUSIVE MANAGEMENT OF THE FIRST DRAMA QUARTETTE: GREGORY ASSOCIATES, INC. 930 LA CIENEGA BLVD., LOS ANGELES 46, CALIFORNIA FIRE NOTICE.: The exit indicated hy a red light a nd sign neare t to the seat you occupy i the sho'rtest route to the street. In the event of fi re 1)lea" do not r un- \VALK TO T HAT EX[T. J ACOB GRU.\IET, Fire Commissioner. It is urgent for th e comfort and !!-a fety of all that patrons refrain front li ghting matches in this theater. OPERA HOUSE of the BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC ORCHESTRA 1st BALCONY 2nd BALCONY i IXIT It EXIT I) ~ EX" IS J [ aex~-" IXIT 12 EXIT 14 i ~ 11 ~ ~ ~ _.eo.- 100'" 11 ItOO KI.YN EAGl.E PRESS 333 IN PAUL GREGORY PRESENTS THE GEORGE BERNARD SHA"\V'S DON JUAN ..I FIRST DRAMA QUARTETTE IN HELL DIRECTED BY CHARLES LAUGHTON e e Probably no one person has received so much publicity so continuously over the past forty years as George Bernard Shaw. Thus, a thumb-nail biography of the man need recall only the highlights of his long life. A master publicist; a critic of music, art, literature and the drama; a pamphleteer and lecturer in the promulgation of his economic ideologies and sociological con victions; an essayist and philosopher of wide range which included science and religion; and, most conspiciously, a fertile playwright, his many and varied activi ties could-and do-fill volumes. GEORGE SHAW Shaw was born in Dublin, Eire (or Ireland as it was then called) on July 26, 1856. At the age of 94, on November 2, 1950, the picturesque author came to the end of his days in Ayot-St. Lawrence, Hertfordshire. Shaw's mother was a gifted singer and from her the boy received his education in, and liking for, the best in music. From her, too, came his independence, his perse verance and his character. His estranged father was an alcoholic, but with a highly developed sense of humor, whence the playwright is supposed to have derived his brilliant wit. It is a paradox that the scintillating Shaw was but an indifferent student in school. He never went to college; his learning was self-acquired. In fact, the lad had to go l ., iii . to work when 14 or 15 . He kept this job until he was twenty, then followed his mother and sister to London where the ladies had gone two years before to teach music. Although always re !: ferred to as an Irishman, Shaw, did not return to Ireland for 29 years, and then only ~ for a visit; he never again took up residence there. During the young redhead's first nine years in London no aspiring worker could have ~ been more of a failure. Although he wrote incessantly-1000 to 1500 words every ~ day-yet his earnings in all that time averaged less than half a penny a day. It was ~. his confident mother who supported him . During these years he joined a number of clubs or little groups, and it was out of these that he became interested in economics and politics. He became an ardent Fabian Socialist and for 50 years labored unremittently in promoting that political creed. I His first paying job was as a book reviewer. He was permitted the heretofore un heard privilege of identifying his articles with his initials: G.B.S.- which since have become known the world over. Then he became an art and music critic, and still ~• f ~ later a drama critic. And in this capacity he kept the British theatre. in a turmoil for years. He fought against the old, worn out conventions of the stage and ridiculed the silly romanticism that was the fashion of the period. I- Then, when past forty, he took up the writing of plays. "Widower's Houses"- a thrust at tenement landlords-being his first. But it was not until five years later that he was to have his first success, \\Candida." Then it was another five years before he had a financial success-and that was in America with \\The Devil's Disciple." .' These royalties freed him from the drudgery of reviewing. At 46 Shaw married his secretary, Charlotte Payne-Townsend. He had been ill and she nursed him back to health. Though they never had any children they were a devoted and happy couple. ~ Shaw reached his peak as he neared 57, when "Pygmalion" and "Androcles and the Lion" were produced. The latter, together with "Man and Superman" and "Saint ~ Joan," are held to be his best works. The first two, along with "Major Barbara" and l·~ \\Caesar and Cleopatra," have been transferred to the films. ~a Other plays of prominence are, "Mrs. Warren's Profession," \\Arms and the Man," ~~ ,...,~ "Back to Methuselah" and "The Doctor's Dilemma." Altogether, the nonagenarian ~ had more than 50 plays to his credit at the time of his death. In 1925 Shaw received the highest honor an author can achieve, the Nobel Prize e ~ for Literature. n It isn't generally known, but Charles Boyer really began his dramatic career as a triple-threat man by writing, producing and enacting the leading roles in his own plays. He was seven years old at the time, and his offerings were staged in the hayloft of his father's granary in the little town of Figeac, in southwestern France. This early flair for the drama was no boyish whim. Charles had evinced a penchant for learning lines when, at the age of three, he overheard an older boy at a parochial school studying his lessons aloud, subsequently returned home and recited to his startled parents the complete story of the Crucifixion. Boyer was fourteen when the World War began, and his barn-loft theatre was still going full blast. When Figeac's police authorities decided to stage a series of bene fits for the town's military hospital, Charles handled the job almost single-handedly, worked as stage manager, scenic artist, director and actor. This contact with a mature audience crystallized his interest in the theater, and when, two years later, a motion picture company chose a nearby location site, Boyer be came acquainted with Raphael Duflos, one of the leads in the production, who gave the boy dramatic lessons, induced Mrs. Boyer to consent to a theatrical career for her son. In 1919 he went to the University of the Sorbonne and became the pupil of Duflos in the Paris Conservatoire. His first opportunity came when an older dramatic student fell ill and Boyer replaced him in \\Les Jardins de Murcie" at the Champs-Elysees Theater. Charles learned the role in two days, went on after one rehearsal, did so well that the noted actor-producer Gemier, offered him a part in his \\Grande Pas torale" at the Cirque d'Hiver. This proved to be the first of a number of stage successes, and although acclaimed by the Parisian press as France's dramatic white hope, Boyer continued his studies at the Conservatoire, eventually graduated to play the lead in a play written es pecially for him, \\L'lnsoumise," in 1922. The role made Boyer Dramatic Idol No. 1 in france, and he followed through with other equally popular hits. Between his stage engagements he worked in a number of silent pictures including \\L'Homme du Large" and \\Le Capitaine Fracasse." Not until the advent of talking pictures, however, did Boyer hit his stride in the cinema. His first talking picture role was in one of the earliest French sound pro ductions, \\La Barcarolle d' Amour," in which he scored so effectively that Hollywood heard of him, sent for him to play the leads in French versions of American films. He landed in America with no knowledge of the English language, mastered it so G readily that after doing \\The Big House" and \\The Trial of Mary Dugan" in French, his third Hollywood vehicle was in English, with Ruth Chatterton in \\The Magnificent Lie." The next few years Boyer spent commuting between Hollywood and the Continent, workinq in pictures in Paris and Berlin as well as the American film capital. During a Hollywood assignment- in 1934 he met Pat Paterson, English actress under contract to the same company, and after a whirlwind three-weeks courtship flew with her to Yuma, where they were married. They honeymooned in Paris and while they were there Charles was chosen to star in \\Mayerling." They have a son, Michael, born De cember 9th, 1943. Boyer's Hollywood pictures include \\Break of Hearts" with Katharine Hepburn; \\Shanghai" with Loretta Young; \\The Garden of Allah" with Marlene Dietrich; \\His tory Is Made at Night" with Jean Arthur; \\Conquest"-in which he played Napoleon -with Greta Garbo; \\Tovarich" with Claudette Colbert; \\Algiers" with Hedy La marr; \\Love Affair," \\When Tomorrow Comes" and \\Together Again," all with Irene Dunne; \\Tales of Manhattan" with Rita Hayworth; \\AII This and Heaven, Too" with Bette Davis; \\Gaslight" with Ingrid Bergman; \\Cluny Brown" with Jennifer Jones; \\13th Letter" with Linda Darnell, and most re.cently \\The Rage of the Vulture" with Alan Ladd, Deborah Kerr and Corinne Calvet.

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