Tom Stoppard wins the PEN Pinter Prize.

Playwright Tom Stoppard has been announced as the winner of the 2013 PEN/Pinter prize, celebrating a lifetime of literary achievement and his campaigning work in the field of human rights.

Founded in 2009 by the freedom-of-expression writers’ group English PEN in Pinter’s memory, the prize is awarded annually to a British writer or writer resident in Britain who, in the words of Pinter’s Nobel literature prize speech in 2005, casts an “unflinching, unswerving” gaze upon the world and shows a “fierce intellectual determination … to define the real truth of our lives and our societies.”

[via The Guardian]

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Franca Rame, 1928-2013.

The theatre artist Franca Rame has died. [via The Guardian] She was, as many readers will know, one half of the great Rame and Fo duo.

Here she performs the monologue Lo stupro (The Rape):

[via YouTube]

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The Beckett Circle.

I just learnt of the Beckett Circle, which is the official website for the Samuel Beckett Society and a great new Beckett resource. [The Beckett Circle]

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Huayi 2013 events.

Tickets for Huayi 2013 go on sale on SISTIC today. Three events that have caught my eye:

A production of the Antigone by the Li Liuyi Theatre Studio of China. [via SISTIC]

An(other) adaptation of an Eileen Chang novel, 《半生缘》/Eighteen Springs. [via SISTIC]

And an adaptation of 《红楼梦》 by Edward Lam. [via SISTIC]

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Now I just have to… wait.

Okay, sorry for that awful joke.

I wanted to link to some Wittgenstein article today, but… let me just do this instead. Yay. Tickets. To Waiting for Godot.

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BluePrince.

An artist is kept alone somewhere, dreaming of coffins and parking lots, a cat and even a prince. The electricity generated by such thoughts crackles and pulses in the maps of his mind. Then one day, he wakes up in an electrical substation. He decides to make it his home, and to invite others to share in his dreams. Do you remember this story?

This performance interrogates the role of artists in society, and presents a meditative homage to the founder of The Substation, the late Kuo Pao Kun, a decade after his passing. BluePrince is presented by The Substation and The Blue Statesmen, an independent collective of theatre artists comprising Bryan Tan, Robin Loon and Casey Lim, and is performed by Oliver Chong. Written by Robin Loon, and conceived and directed by Bryan Tan.

I’ll be watching BluePrince next week, a short performance that pays homage to the late great Kuo Pao Kun. It’ll be staged on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (27-29 September) and I believe that tickets are still available. [via The Substation]

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P.S. I got my tickets for Godot yesterday too.

Waiting in Singapore.

Waiting for Godot comes to Singapore via ABA Productions. It will run from 10 to 13 October. Details in the link. [via ABA Productions]

[Tickets via SISTIC]

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Some Shakespeare.

First day back at school! It went reasonably well, all things considered. Anyway, let’s get some Shakespeare in here. Here is a bit of Cymbeline at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival this year. (It’s still running!) [via YouTube]

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The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

In the interest of getting my hype on, here is the trailer for Stephen Earnhart’s multimedia adaptation of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. [via YouTube]

I am not the biggest Murakami fan (though I certainly don’t mind him) but this really fascinates me. I’m watching it on Friday.

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Emma Yong dies.

Theatre actress Emma Yong has passed away at the age of 37 after losing her fight with cancer. [via The Straits Times]

Here she performs “Don’t Rain on my Parade”. [via YouTube]

Goodbye, Emma. Thanks for all the memories.

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