Word: ciardi
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...soon took in artists and classicists. Now, aided by 50 U.S. colleges and universities, it stands as one of the finest overseas representatives of U.S. culture. Among its alumni: Playwright Thornton Wilder, Classicist Robert F. Goheen (see above), Novelists Ralph Ellison and William Styron, Poets Richard Wilbur and John Ciardi, Composers Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland and Roger Sessions...
...boosters tend to think of the Saturday Review as the house organ of higher culture in America. For it was from there, a year ago last May, that the first salvo of literary enthusiasm was discharged, by the noted American poet and fearless antagonist of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, John Ciardi. "Archibald MacLeish's J.B. is great poetry, great drama, and--as far as my limitations permit me to sense it--great stagecraft," he proclaimed in the opening sentence of his article, "The Birth of a Classic." A prefatory note explained that SR's poetry editor was saluting the work...
...Ciardi had misgivings about the ability of commercial old lowbrow America to recognize true Greatness overnight. "J.B., it must be added, is strong stuff," he warned. "Too strong, one knows, for Broadway success this season or next." But eventually all would be well, he concluded: "And yet Broadway will come to it in time, because it must, because great imagination and great talent cannot be denied forever. Meanwhile, Yale is preparing it for production, and certainly the summer theatres and the college groups throughout the country will have found a new star forever. For J.B. adds a dimension...
...then, on the cold, wet night of December eleventh, 1958--just eight short months after John Ciardi had despaired of a major professional production for years to come--on the stage of the ANTA Theatre, at the corner of 52nd Street and Broadway, Archibald MacLeish's "play in verse" received its New York City premiere. The production had enlisted a somewhat disparate but unquestionably distinguished group of the biggest talents in the business: Elia Kazan, Boris Aronson, Raymond Massey, Christopher Plummer, Pat Hingle. Everyone involved, in Newsweek's candid prose, was taking "a calculated risk; the drama had arrived...
...Ciardi's Dilemma...