A List
3/25/02

ORIGINAL PLAY TO BE PERFORMED AT ST. LAWRENCE

CANTON - The Famous Mrs. Beach, an original script written and 
directed by Rebecca Daniels, associate professor of speech and 
theatre at St. Lawrence University, about American composer Amy Beach, 
will be performed Wednesday through Saturday, April 3 through 6, at 
8 p.m. each evening in Gulick Theatre. Performances are open to the 
public, free of charge.
	The play is a drama about the life and career of Beach, 
including her struggles against the constraints of Victorian and 
early 20th-century societal expectations; her challenges and triumphs 
as a woman composer; and her tumultuous personal journey.  The action 
takes place in Boston, New York, Munich and other locations from 1882 
to 1914. Beach's piano music is integral to the production, reflecting 
her inner life and other transitions throughout the play.
	In conjunction with the production, a brief lecture on the 
life of Beach will be presented by noted musicologist and biographer 
Adrienne Fried Block, author of Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian 
(Oxford University Press, 1998), on Wednesday, April 3, at 4 p.m. 
in Gilbert Recital Hall; it is also open to the public, free of charge. 
The lecture will be followed by a short concert of Beach piano music 
by Barbara Phillips-Farley.  Also as part of this program, Block and 
Daniels will discuss the collaboration that turned a biography into 
the play about the life and work of Beach. The program is supported 
by the Birdsong Endowment for the Arts.

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