Talk to Me from WNYC

One of the most powerful aspects of “War Horse,” which opened at Lincoln Center on April 14, is, of course, the astonishing puppets. Minutes into this riveting tale of a boy and his horse against the background of World War I (see our feature here), the audience has completely invested the “horses” with life.

It’s a good thing that William Shakespeare was born in the spring—April 26—because his sonnets are crammed with sumptuous images of ripe nature bursting its bounds. And for a good many years the Cornelia Street Café has celebrated the playwright’s birthday with a reading of selected sonnets.  

A large swatch of artist Laurel Nakadate's work features performances in which she performs acts with strangers—and videotapes them. Nakadate recently discussed her work at UnionDocs as part of New York's "Walls and Bridges" conference.

On Thursday, a conversation about censorship, art and morality took place at the New School's Arnold Hall between two American authors and a pair of French philosophers. The discussion was part of the Walls and Bridges lecture series.

On Saturday, May 26, "The Writers Studio Reading Series" celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Yale Review, with authors who have some connection to the quarterly. The lineup of authors, including Louise Glück, Caryl Phillips, Edmund White and Michael Cunningham, read from their works at Le Poisson Rouge. All of the readers—with the exception of Edmund White, who has been published in the journal—teach at Yale.

Tennessee Williams, perhaps best-known for his plays "Streetcar Named Desire," "The Glass Menagerie," and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," is the author of a "massive body of work," in the words of N.Y.U. drama professor Joe E. Jeffreys. On the occasion of the centennial of Williams' birth—the playwright was born March 26, 1911—Jeffreys hosted the first of a three-part series at Manhattan's Museum of Arts and Design entitled The Kindness of Strangeness. (Williams fans will recognize the title of the panel from an achingly memorable line delivered by Blanche DuBois in the playwright's "Streetcar Named Desire.")

Anticipation was high at the Story Prize event at The New School's Tishman Auditorium last week. The three Story Prize finalists—Anthony Doerr ("Memory Wall"), Yiyun Li ("Gold Boy, Emerald Girl") and Suzanne Rivecca ("Death is Not an Option") read from their short story collections, knowing that, at the conclusion of the reading, one of them would win $20,000. Anthony Doerr came out the winner.

Nearly two feet of newly fallen snow proved little obstacle for fans to clap their eyes on musician Bill Callahan on a recent winter's night. Callahan, known to many by the name Smog, drew a hip crowd to Spoonbill and Sugartown in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, for a reading from his novel, Letters to Emma Bowlcut. The book, read in the author’s halting, sonorous voice, consists of correspondence written by a man to a woman he met at a party. Readers aren’t provided much context for the meeting but can sense the relationship develop as the letters progress.

English writer Zadie Smith has accomplished so much in the past 11 years. Her first novel, White Teeth, was published in 2000 before she even turned 25. Now, she's got two additional novels, a number of short stories, and a growing body of criticism under her belt. Smith was also named a tenured creative writing professor at New York University last September and was recently made the critic for Harper's Magazine's "New Books" column.

"World leaders need to answer to artists." This was the rallying cry of Natalia Kaliada, artistic director of the Belarus Free Theatre, at a benefit for the embattled dissident troupe organized by the PEN American Center that was held at Le Poisson Rouge on Wednesday. She added “politicians do not have steps; they have just words.”

At last month's True Story: Non-Fiction at KGB Bar, famed essayist, journalist and critic Vivian Gornick talked about womanhood, working and life as a woman worker. KGB curator Erin Edmison introduced the night with a story of how she came to first read Gornick's work.

Two is a famously bad age for toddlers, but it seems to be a prime number for a reading series marking a rite of passage—in this case, the celebration this past Wednesday of the Happy Ending Music and Reading Series’ two-year anniversary at Joe’s Pub.