"'Goodbye, sir,' Owen said, and he fell in behind Corporal Costello…trying to match the cadet’s precise stride and rigid carriage. He didn’t even come close, and Dr. Booth knew that he never would. The distracted saunter he kept breaking into was not an accident of age, something to be outgrown, or overcome. It was, in truth, nothing less than Owen himself." – Tobias Wolff, "Nightingale."
Children lead us, in a fantasy about art and freedom, and a difficult memoir.
This program features two stories focusing on boys and what might be called their rites of passage. SOLOMON’S BIG DAY: A CHILDREN’S STORY, was written by Africa- American author, Toure, who was born in Boston and began his publishing career as an intern for Rolling Stone, for which he later became a contributing editor. His published collection of short fiction is called THE PORTABLE PROMISED LAND. He has also contributed work to The New Yorker, Zoetrope All Story, The New York Times Magazine, and Essence.
To read SOLOMON’S BIG DAY: A CHILDREN’S STORY we recruited the multitalented interdisciplinary writer, performer, and director Daniel Alexander Jones, whose plays and performance pieces include BLOOD:SHOCK BOOGIE and EARTHBIRTHS. As a director he has staged BLACK POWER BARBIE by SELECTED SHORTS author Shay Youngblood.
Many of Tobias Wolff’s complex, delicate stories involve memories of childhood, and distances between children and adults. In this tale of a father taking his son to a military boarding school, “Nightingale,” there are lessons learned on both sides. Wolff is the author of the memoirs THIS BOY’S LIFE and IN PHAROAH’S ARMY: MEMORIES OF THE LOST WAR, as well as the short story collections SELECTED SHORTS has often dipped into, THE NIGHT IN QUESTION, BACK IN THE WORLD, and IN THE GARDEN OF THE NORTH AMERICAN MARTYRS..
Children lead us, in a fantasy about art and freedom, and a difficult memoir.
This program features two stories focusing on boys and what might be called their rites of passage. SOLOMON’S BIG DAY: A CHILDREN’S STORY, was written by Africa- American author, Toure, who was born in Boston and began his publishing career as an intern for Rolling Stone, for which he later became a contributing editor. His published collection of short fiction is called THE PORTABLE PROMISED LAND. He has also contributed work to The New Yorker, Zoetrope All Story, The New York Times Magazine, and Essence.
To read SOLOMON’S BIG DAY: A CHILDREN’S STORY we recruited the multitalented interdisciplinary writer, performer, and director Daniel Alexander Jones, whose plays and performance pieces include BLOOD:SHOCK BOOGIE and EARTHBIRTHS. As a director he has staged BLACK POWER BARBIE by SELECTED SHORTS author Shay Youngblood.
Many of Tobias Wolff’s complex, delicate stories involve memories of childhood, and distances between children and adults. In this tale of a father taking his son to a military boarding school, “Nightingale,” there are lessons learned on both sides. Wolff is the author of the memoirs THIS BOY’S LIFE and IN PHAROAH’S ARMY: MEMORIES OF THE LOST WAR, as well as the short story collections SELECTED SHORTS has often dipped into, THE NIGHT IN QUESTION, BACK IN THE WORLD, and IN THE GARDEN OF THE NORTH AMERICAN MARTYRS..
About Selected Shorts
Selected Shorts features some of the finest artists of the American theater reading contemporary and classic short fiction-the most distinguished works of the early masters such as Chekhov, Maupassant, Malamud and dozens of others.
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