On Demand
Survival Kit Archive
June 2004
Tony Kushner
Sunday, June 27, 2004
Tony Kushner has mastered the art of creating theater that is at once up to the minute and timeless; his plays Angels in America, Homebody: Kabul, and Caroline or Change are suffused with both poetry and historical consciousness, and they’ve won him a Pulitzer Prize and two Tonys. His work has been called "a victory... for the transforming power of the imagination to turn devastation into beauty." The influences behind his works are so diverse, I’m wondering what he’s been willing to leave out of his survival kit.
Linda Emond
Sunday, June 20, 2004
Linda Emond says that if she weren’t an actor she’d "probably be working for the Environmental Protection Agency." Well, they may have to wait a long time for her services, given the rave reviews she’s garnered for her performances in plays like Homebody/Kabul, Life x 3, The Dying Gaul, and "1776". The New York Times has called her "one of the essential treasures of the New York theater". But I get the feeling that she’d enjoy a journey into the wild, if she had the time to spare. Let’s ask her what she’d bring along in her cultural survival kit.
Richard Thomas
Sunday, June 13, 2004
Richard Thomas may always be remembered fondly as John-Boy from The Waltons, but he’s also enjoyed a long career as a serious dramatic actor (he first appeared on Broadway at the age of 7). He’s received glowing notices for his work in Hamlet, Richard II, Edward Albee’s Tiny Alice, Lanford Wilson’s Fifth of July and Terrence McNally’s The Stendhal Syndrome. New York Times critic Frank Rich wrote that he was one of the few actors to have refined rather than forgotten his craft during a long career in television. In addition to dozens of film and TV credits, he’s also published several volumes of poetry. Now that he’s left Walton’s Mountain far behind, we’re proposing to send him to an even more remote location. Let’s ask him what he’s packed in his survival kit for the trip.
Margaret Atwood
Sunday, June 06, 2004
Margaret Atwood seems like the perfect guest; she’s been writing about survival all her life. Her novel, Oryx and Crake, follows the lone survivor of a catastrophic worldwide epidemic; she’s written a collection of stories called Wilderness Tips; her novel, Surfacing, depicts a woman alone on a remote island; and in her scholarly study, Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, she argues that this is the major theme of her native land. The subject has also cropped up in her novels The Handmaid’s Tale, The Blind Assassin, and Alias Grace. Let’s turn the tables and ask this prolific writer what she would put in her survival kit.