Dance in America

Guest host Jane Kaczmarek presents works celebrating dance. The program was inspired by Library of America’s volume Dance in America: A Reader’s Anthology. Jane Kaczmarek is best known for her role as Lois on Malcolm in the Middle, for which she received 7 consecutive Emmy nominations, as well as nominations for the Golden Globe and SAG Awards. Her television career began on The Paper Chase, St. Elsewhere, and Hill Street Blues. In New York, Kaczmarek has appeared on Broadway and off at Manhattan Theatre Club, Second Stage, the Public Theatre, New York Theater Workshop, and the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Kaczmarek also appeared in Long Day's Journey Into Night at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles with Alfred Molin; played the Stage Manager in Our Town with Deaf West Theatre, and will appear this summer at the Williamstown Theatre Festival’s world premiere of Sharyn Rothstein’s Tell Me I’m Not Crazy.

In our first piece, a domineering mother uses an evening at the ballet to find fault in her son, who literally never gets a word in. “My Mother Explains the Ballet to Me,” by Jesse Eisenberg, is performed by Patricia Kalember. Jesse Eisenberg is an Academy Award-nominated actor, playwright, and contributor to the New Yorker and McSweeney’s. He is the author of the plays Asuncion; The Revisionist; The Spoils, winner of the Theatre Visions Fund Award; and Yea, Sister. His debut short story collection, Bream Gives Me Hiccups, was published in 2015, and is currently being adapted into a comedy series, with Eisenberg directing. His acting credits include Zombieland, The Social Network, Now You See Me, The End of the Tour, American Ultra, Batman v. Superman and The Hummingbird Project. He will appear in the forthcoming film The Art of Self Defense.

Reader Patricia Kalember’s stage credits include The White Card, The Nerd, Losing Louie, Y2k, Don’t Dress for Dinner, Sea of Tranquility, Loose Knit, and From Above. She received an Outer Critics Circle nomination for her role in the original cast of The Foreigner. On television, she had a recurring role on thirtysomething and starred in Sisters. Other television credits include Law & Order: SVU, Power, Orange Is the New Black, Gossip Girl, Blue Bloods, Allegiance, Madam Secretary, Veep, The Good Wife, and the HBO miniseries Olive Kitteridge. Her numerous films include Jacob’s Ladder, Path to War, A Far Off Place, Signs, Rabbit Hole, The Company Men, Limitless, Girl Most Likely, and Run All Night. Kalember currently appears on Amazon’s The Tick and Power on Starz.

Our second work is more serious, and shows us a very different side of the dance world. Janet Collins (1917-2003) was a ballet dancer, choreographer, and teacher. Collins was the first black prima ballerina to perform with the Metropolitan Opera and danced lead roles in Aida and Carmen, following her role in the Broadway musical Out of This World, for which she won the Donaldson Award for best Broadway dancer. Collins taught modern dance at institutions including Balanchine's School of American Ballet, Marymount Manhattan College, and Manhattanville College. In recognition of her role in breaking the color barrier in professional dance, Collins’s cousin, fellow dancer Carmen de Lavallade, established the Janet Collins Fellowship to support aspiring dancers. Collins was also recognized by the National Coalition of 100 Black Women with the Candace Award in 1989. In this excerpt from her autobiography, Collins remembers an audition for the great “Léonide Massine.” It’s a thoughtful reflection of an era both glamorous, and marked by prejudice.

Carmen de Lavallade has had an unparalleled career in dance, theater, film, and television. Her dance career includes having ballets created for her by Lester Horton, Geoffrey Holder, Alvin Ailey, Glen Tetley, John Butler, and Agnes de Mille. De Lavallade succeeded her cousin Janet Collins as the principal dancer with the Metropolitan Opera and was a guest artist with the American Ballet Theater. She has choreographed for the Dance Theatre of Harlem, Philadanco, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and productions ofPorgy and Bess and Die Meistersinger at the Metropolitan Opera. Among her numerous stage credits are off-Broadway productions of Death of a Salesman and Othello, and House of Flowers and A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway. She premiered a solo retrospective of her career entitled As I Remember It in 2015, and her most recent work includes 651 ARTS’ FLY: Five First Ladies of Dance, Step-Mother by Ruby Dee, and Post Black by Regina Taylor. In 2017, de Lavallade was named a Kennedy Center Honors recipient for her lifetime contributions to American culture.

Our third work is not about dancing per se, though the magical garment in Ben Loory’s “The Cape” has a fascinating rhythm all its own. Ben Loory is the author of the short story collections Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day and Tales of Falling and Flying, as well as the children’s picture book The Baseball Player and the Walrus. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House, READ Magazine, and Fairy Tale Review, among others. His story “Photographs” was a finalist in the Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers Contest, and his story “The TV” was named a Distinguished Story of the Year in The Best American Short Stories 2011. Loory is currently an instructor for the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.

“The Cape” was the inspiration for an original dance piece commissioned by Symphony Space. You can see choreographer Gabrielle Lamb’s version by visiting SelectedShorts.org. Lamb is a winner of a Princess Grace Award for Choreography. She is based in New York City, where she directs her company, Pigeonwing Dance. Her work has been presented by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, BalletX, Ballet Collective, Sacramento Ballet, Ballet Austin, Ballet Memphis, Jacob’s Pillow, and Dance on Camera at Lincoln Center. She has won fellowships and competitions at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Milwaukee Ballet, the Banff Centre, and NY City Center, as well as the S&R Foundation’s Washington Award.

Enjoy the dance. And you can hear reader Tony Yazbeck’s charming reading of the story here. Tony Yazbeck most recently appeared on Broadway in Prince of Broadway, receiving the Chita Rivera Award and nominations for Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards. He is best known for his leading role in the 2014 revival of On the Town, earning him a Tony Award nomination and the Astaire Award. Additional theater credits include Gypsy, Oklahoma!, A Chorus Line, White Christmas, Chicago, and Finding Neverland on Broadway, andLittle Me, Crazy for You, and The Beast in the Jungle off-Broadway. Yazbeck’s screen credits include Smash, Billions, and an appearance in the documentary Every Little Step. His debut album, The Floor Above Me, was released in 2016. He serves on the board of the YOUNG/ARTS program of the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts.

We never say we’ve saved the best of last, with such an embarrassment of riches on each show. But it’s hard not to be excited by the opportunity to pair one of America’s great contemporary fiction writers, the late Kurt Vonnegut, with one of the country’s most versatile actors, Tony Shalhoub. Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (1922 - 2007) was The New York Times-bestselling author of Cat’s Cradle, Breakfast of Champions, and Slaughterhouse-Five, which is ranked 18th on The Modern Library’s list of 100 Best Novels. Additional works includeGod Bless You, Mr. Rosewater; Welcome to the Monkey House; Deadeye Dick; Galapagos; Hocus Pocus; and Timequake. Vonnegut was an honorary president of the American Humanist Association until his death in 2007. Armageddon in Retrospect, a compilation of unpublished compositions, was published posthumously in 2009. Complete Stories was released in September 2017.

Vonnegut often fiercely attacked American complacency and arrogance in his work. He has the same targets in “Tango,” but this romantic comedy delivers its blows gently and hilariously, as a great Latin dance undermines a stuffy WASP community. Reader Tony Shalhoub is a Golden Globe, SAG, and three-time Emmy Award-winner for his leading role onMonk. His screen credits include Wings, Men in Black, The Siege, Galaxy Quest, The Man Who Wasn’t There, Spy Kids, Cars, We Are Men, Nurse Jackie, BrainDead, Final Portrait,Rosy, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award. On Broadway, he has appeared in The Odd Couple, The Heidi Chronicles, Lend Me a Tenor,Golden Boy, Act One, and The Price, in addition to numerous off-Broadway and regional theater credits. This year, Shalhoub earned a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his role in The Band’s Visit.