The Morning Line
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THE MORNING LINE DATE: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 FROM: Melissa Cohen, Michelle Farabaugh Megan Ching PAGES: 22, including this page. Obituary for Robert DiMichiell, Jr. October 13, 2015 Robert Lawrence DeMichiell Jr. passed away last night (Monday, October 12) in Manhattan after a three year battle with cancer. He died peacefully at home with his husband Jeffrey M. Wilson at his side. DeMichiell was born on May 2, 1958 in Portland, Maine, to Robert Lawrence DeMichiell Sr. and Nan (McEvoy) DeMichiell. At the age of 2, his family moved to Kodiak, Alaska, where his father was the Commanding Officer of the LORAN station. In 1962, Robert Sr. was transferred to the faculty of the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, CT, and the family moved to Waterford, Connecticut where they still reside. Bob Sr. passed away in 2014. As a young boy, Robert loved art and would copy any illustration he saw. With his father as his chaperone and biggest champion, he attended hundreds of art fairs with a sign, “You name it, I’ll draw it. One dollar. No dogs”. In 1980, he graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design and moved to New York, which remained his home. DeMichiell was one of the most prolific commercial illustrators of his time, with a distinctive style that was synonymous with sophisticated New York City-based entertainment and culture. His work has appeared in the New York Times, The New Yorker (including the cover in 1993, and hundreds of theatrical illustrations for them, including the magazine’s first ever color illustration of the Blue Man Group), Entertainment Weekly (where he was a regular for many years) and Premiere Magazine's “If You Ask Me” column for 12 years. Additionally, he created the signature art for many Broadway and Off-Broadway shows, including Oliver (1984), The Wind and the Willows (1985), Arsenic and Old Lace (1986), The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told (1998), La Cage aux Folles (the 2004 revival), as well as numerous posters for the charity Broadway Cares including the organization’s annual Easter Bonnet, Gypsy of the Year, Nothing Like a Dame, Broadway Flea Market and Broadway Barks events. His illustrations have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Readers Digest, TV Guide, Hartford Courant and literally hundreds of newspapers and magazines around the country. His corporate work includes images for American Express, Absolut Vodka, and many others. He married Jeffrey M. Wilson on March 25, 2012 and their wedding was profiled in the NY Times. A year later, their photo appeared in a story about same-sex marriage . He is survived by his mother Nan, sisters Lynn (husband Brian) Lynch and Gail DeMichiell, nephews Matthew and David Lynch, and niece Jessica Harran. A long-planned celebration of his art work will be held, as originally planned, this evening (Tuesday, October 13, 2015). Entitled “Robert de Michiell: On Fire Island,” the exhibition will be from 1:00-5:00 PM today with a closing reception from 6:00 to 8:00 PM at ClampArt Gallery, 531 West 25th in Manhattan. Tributes are coming in from all over. Here is a beautiful one from Paul Rudnick: Robert de Michiell. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in his name to The Actors Fund, 729 Seventh Ave., New York, NY, 10019 or to Calvary Fund (Calvary Hospital Hospice), 1740 Eastchester Road, Bronx, NY 10461 Here is a sample of some of Robert’s artwork: 16 October 14, 2015 C3 October 14, 2015 Suzan-Lori Parks Is Awarded the Gish Prize By Erik Pipenburg Suzan-Lori Parks is the recipient of the 22nd Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, awarded annually to artists who have had an extraordinary impact in their disciplines. Established through the will of the actress Lillian Gish, the prize comes with a large cash award, currently about $300,000. Ms. Parks is a Pulitzer Prize-winning and Tony Award-nominated playwright whose works include the epic “Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3),” which was staged in 2014 at the Public Theater to mostly positive reviews, and an adaptation of the book for the controversial revamp of the musical “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess,” which opened on Broadway in 2012. In a news release announcing the award, the Gish Prize Trust said that Ms. Parks’s work “challenges contemporary conceptions of race, sexuality, family and society, and is distinguished by its striking wordplay, vibrant wit and uninhibited style.” “Brilliantly trippy” is how Ms. Parks described joining the roster of past winners, which includes Bob Dylan, Maya Lin and Arthur Miller. Ms. Parks is to receive the award in a ceremony on Nov. 30 at the Public Theater. The evening will include a performance of an excerpt from her Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “Topdog/Underdog,” with the actors Brandon J. Dirden and Jason Dirden, and a musical performance by Ms. Parks and the musician Steven Bargonetti. C1 October 14, 2015 Review: ‘Ugly Lies the Bone,’ With Mamie Gummer as a Combat Veteran By Charles Isherwood It takes a brave playwright to saddle her work with the less than enticing title “Ugly Lies the Bone.” The play itself, about a severely wounded war veteran attempting to put together a new life, confirms that Lindsey Ferrentino is a writer of dauntless conviction. This bracing drama from the Roundabout Underground program, starring a superb Mamie Gummer as that damaged vet, confronts an achingly topical issue with hardheaded honesty and admirable compassion. Jess (Ms. Gummer) has returned to her Florida home from a third tour in Afghanistan, enduring intense pain from injuries and the many surgeries that followed. We can read how much she suffers, moment by moment, from the grimaces and winces that flicker across Ms. Gummer’s face. One leg almost permanently cramped, Jess uses a complicated walker to move around. The skin on the right side of her face has the mottled look of some kind of exotic fish, and she conceals her thin hair with a scarf; grafts cover large areas of her body as well, so she wears a bodysuit that extends down one arm. Jess’s psyche is under severe stress, too, although her inherent strong will comes through clearly in her sardonic responses to her sister Kacie (Karron Graves), whose relentless attempts to cheer and distract only provoke irritation. Kacie’s bubbly chatter about her new boyfriend, Kelvin (played with lumbering, sweet cluelessness by Haynes Thigpen), meets with sarcasm and raised eyebrows, although Jess has but one eyebrow to raise. Ms. Ferrentino alternates scenes depicting Jess’s uneasy transition to her “old” life with those set at a facility where she receives a kind of virtual reality therapy. Putting on goggles that cause her pain (“It took three surgeries to give me back my eyelid”), Jess is encouraged to move her limbs while watching an avatar move through a snowy wilderness. The choice of clime is hers; she finds it soothing. Despite the forthright depictions of Jess’s suffering and frustration, “Ugly Lies the Bone,” directed by Patricia McGregor with careful attention to subtle changes in texture, retains a certain buoyancy. Ms. Gummer deftly draws out all the wryness in Jess’s personality, even as she makes clear that it’s often gallows humor born of her traumatic experience. Commenting on how Kacie, too, no longer resembles the glowing beauty of her high school years, she cracks, “At least I have an excuse.” As Kacie and Kelvin tiptoe around Jess and her sensitivities, Jess renews a friendship with her former boyfriend when she stops in at a gas station convenience store and finds him behind the counter. After the embarrassment of failing to recognize her has washed away, Stevie, played with goofball warmth by Chris Stack, offers his sympathy with an offhand grace. After a few more visits to the convenience store — Jess’s luck seems to extend only to minor wins in scratch-off lottery tickets — she and Stevie have established a familiar rapport. “If you won more than five, I’d have to take your picture,” Stevie says. “Then I’d have to get my gun,” Jess cracks. Although Stevie has married, he suggests that he and Jess get together to once again watch a space shuttle launch — the last one — from the beach. “I can’t be around sand anymore,” Jess says flatly. “It’s a trigger.” They settle instead on watching it from her rooftop, but just as suggestions of a closer intimacy are hinted at, Jess has a psychic relapse and must be rushed to the hospital. Ms. Ferrentino makes movingly clear how Jess’s experience has scarred her family, too. We learn from Kelvin that Kacie still cries herself to sleep, the kind of detail Kacie, whose anxious care for her sister is evident in Ms. Graves’s excellent chipper-antsy performance, would be too sensitive to share. Their mother, unhappily, has dementia and no longer lives at home. Jess resists Kacie’s attempts to have her visit. We can guess at the reason: fear that her mother will react with horror or confusion at her daughter’s appearance or, worse, will not know her at all. Yes, I know, more cheery detail! But unflinching portraits like the ones Ms. Ferrentino draws of the transitions of wounded veterans back to society are hard to come by outside journalism. The play is also notable for its focus on a female combat veteran; as women are increasingly represented in the armed forces, their stories are rightly drawing more attention (as in “Grounded,” recently at the Public Theater with Anne Hathaway) in works that explore how their experiences are both similar to and different from those of their male counterparts Jess does slowly make progress with her novel therapy, which is based, a note indicates, on stress-reducing techniques actually being used on veterans.