James Magruder: THE PLAY'S THE THING (with David Yezzi)

Presenting the Ivy's very own bookseller Jim Magruder, in celebration of his impressive new book project The Play's the Thing: Fifty Years of Yale Repertory Theatre (1966-2016)! David Yezzi will join Magruder to discuss this thoughtful chronicle, which shows how dozens of theater artists have played their parts in the evolution of a sterling American institution. Each of its four chapters is dedicated to one of the Yale Rep’s artistic directors to date: Robert Brustein, Lloyd Richards, Stan Wojewodski Jr., and James Bundy.

More than just a valentine to an important American theater, The Play’s the Thing is a story about institution-building and the force of personality; about the tug-of-war between vision and realpolitik; and about the continuous negotiation between educational needs and artistic demands.

James Magruder has long-standing Yale ties: three advanced degrees; an award-winning dissertation, Three French Comedies, published by Yale University Press in 1996; two adaptations produced at Yale Repertory Theatre; and fourteen years’ teaching translation and adaptation at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale. He has also published four novels, among them Love Slaves of Helen Hadley Hall, set at Yale in 1983–84, and had two musicals reach the Broadway stage. He has been a Baltimore resident for 33 years, since 1991.

David Yezzi’s latest books are Late Romance: Anthony Hecht—A Poet’s Life (St. Martin’s Press) and More Things in Heaven: New and Selected Poems (Measure Press). He is the editor of The Swallow Anthology of New American Poets, foreword by J. D. McClatchy. As an actor, he recently performed the roles of King Lear (Baltimore Shakespeare Factory) and Hamlet’s Ghost/Player King (Chesapeake Shakespeare). His verse play Schnauzer (2018), produced by The Baltimore Poets Theater, was published by Exot Books. His libretto for David Conte’s opera Firebird Motel has been widely performed and is available on CD from Arsis. A former director of the Unterberg Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y in New York, he was a 2022 short-term visiting fellow at Jesus College, Oxford.

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