By Kevin Fitzpatrick

Aug. 27, 2003
Weekend of Parker Excess a Success
Parkerfest was a smash success! One hundred at speakeasy night! Forty-five at the Round Table luncheon & party! Twenty-five on the walking tour! THANKS TO ALL WHO ATTENDED, particularly the Robert Benchley Society. Read about the weekend or see 60 photos! Read our great press attention: New York Sun "Knickerbocker" and New York Sun "Out & About with AL Gordon"

Ms. Meade was kind enough to send us some information from the publisher:

Marion Meade recreates the aura of excitement, romance, and promise of the 1920s, a decade celebrated for cultural innovation — the birth of jazz, the beginning of modernism — and social and sexual liberation, bringing to light, as well, the anxiety and despair that lurked beneath the nonstop partying and outrageous, unconventional behavior. The literary heroines in BOBBED HAIR AND BATHTUB GIN did what they wanted, said what they thought. They drank gallons of cocktails and knew how to have fun in New York, the Rivera, and Hollywood, where they met and played with all the people worth knowing. They kicked open the door for twentieth-century female writers and set a new model for every woman trying to juggle the serious issues of economic independence, political power, and sexual freedom.

In a style and tone that perfectly captures the jazzy rhythms and tragic sense of impending doom that defined the era, Meade tells the individual stories of Parker, Fitzgerald, Millay, and Ferber, traces the intersections of their lives, and describes the men — including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edmund Wilson, Harold Ross, and Robert Benchley — who influenced them, loved them, and sometimes betrayed them. She describes their social and literary triumphs (Parker’s Round Table witticisms appeared almost daily in the newspapers and Ferber won a Pulitzer Prize for So Big) and writes movingly of the penances they paid: the crumbled love affairs, abortions, depression, lost beauty, nervous breakdowns, and finally, overdoses and even madness.

A vibrant mixture of literary scholarship, social history, and gossip, BOBBED HAIR AND BATHTUB GIN is a rich evocation of a period that continues to intrigue and captivate readers.

We are very excited about another new Parker book for the bookshelves; stay tuned to the site for more information.

Kerry writes: "I just wanted to let you folks know over at Dorothy Parker Society that Fosterfields Living Historical Farm in Morristown, NJ is having a exhibit of Miss Dana's School which Miss Caroline Foster attended. We are also featuring other notable people who attended Miss Dana's, Dorothy Parker and Marjorie Hillis. There will be a reception on Saturday, August 16th at Fosterfields' visitors center from 1 to 3 pm to open the exhibit which will run until early December. Fosterfields Living Historical Farm is located at 73 Kahdena Road, Morristown, NJ. Phone number is 973-326-7645."

Check out these two websites: Fosterfields and Park information.

June 30, 2003
Oscar Worthy
Katherine Hepburn died yesterday, victim of one of Dorothy Parker's most famous quips. After seeing her on Broadway in The Lake, Mrs. Parker wrote: "She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B."

That is, until U.S. District Court Judge John F. Keenan ruled that:

(1) Penguin had photocopied and republished nearly verbatim "Not Much Fun: The Lost Poems of Dorothy Parker" (NY: Scribner, 1996), which Stuart Silverstein compiled, even though Penguin knew at the time that he had copyrighted it; and

(2) As Penguin had infringed upon his copyright when it did so, its book ("Dorothy Parker: Complete Poems," 1999) must be removed--recalled--from public release within twenty days, that is, by July 1, 2003.

Judge Keenan also ordered Penguin to purchase an advertisement in Publishers Weekly to announce the recall. The advertisement appears of page 89 of this week's issue (June 30, 2003 cover date).

The Court also ordered Penguin to contact every US seller of Complete Poems by July 1, 2003--tomorrow--to inform them of the recall.

In a summary judgement handed down, (click here to read the PDF file), a federal judge told Penguin to pull it off the shelves. We've been tracking this since 1999.

Today we sent 5 questions to Stuart Y. Silverstein, the plaintiff in the case, and the editor/compiler of Not Much Fun: the Lost Poems of Dorothy Parker (Scribner), which Penguin was found violated his copyright.

Q: What happened today?

A: Judge Keenan issued an order which enforces his April 4 ruling that Penguin infringed on my copyright. The way I read it, he ordered Penguin to contact every US outlet selling its book (Dorothy Parker: Complete Poems) to "request" — that is, demand — the return of all unsold copies to Penguin, at Penguin's expense. Judge Keenan also ordered Penguin to advertise the same message in Publishers Weekly, and to store the recalled books securely so they cannot inadvertently be redistributed. And Judge Keenan rejected Penguin's request that he "stay," that is, delay the execution of, his ruling. As he put it: "The court did not misapprehend the law or the facts; defendant is simply displeased with the result."

Q: Why is this significant?

A: Nothing of this sort has occurred in publishing in decades. Even the head of Penguin USA admitted under oath that in her twenty years' experience she had never heard of a publisher being forced to recall a book.

Q: Have the copies of Complete Poems already disappeared?

A: Amazon pulled Complete Poems off its website a few weeks ago; I do not know the reason: perhaps they'd run through their inventory; perhaps Penguin asked them to. The book also disappeared from the Penguin US website. There are still copies in many bookstores.

Q: Is Penguin appealing?

A: The so-called "Questing Vole" who writes the London Spectator's "Notes" column cracked that "Penguin is appealing, at least legally."

Q: What would Dorothy Parker think of this?

A: She'd want another drink. On general principles.

Thanks, Stuart! This will not be the end of this tale. Read more of the background here. You can also get Not Much Fun in the What the Hell Book Shop.

One of the things we can talk about is PARKERFEST 2003. We finally settled on the date. I actually went to the Algonquin to talk to them about it. I'm trying to get a special room rate for those attending from out of town.

The date will be Aug. 22-24, which falls on Mrs. Parker's birthday. This is our fifth annual event, and isn't to be missed! We will again be doing the speakeasy night, walking tour, lunch at the Gonk, and some other special events. I am also planning to rent a boat for a cruise around Manhattan; I must judge the interest level for that.

Read about Parkerfest; and see photos from last year.

The reviews are mixed, but we agreed on one thing: Dottie looks A LOT better than Al Roker.

The Peccadillo Theater Company unearths another literary treasure with a revival of Dorothy Parker and Arnaud d'Usseau's rarely seen 1953 drama The Ladies of the Corridor. Not seen in New York City for Decades!

THE LADIES OF THE CORRIDOR Acting in Dorothy Parker's 1953 play are, from left, Patricia Randell, Peggy Cowles and Susan Jeffries.

Directed by Peccadillo's Artistic Director Dan Wackerman, The Ladies of the Corridor performs from Friday, May 2 to Sunday, May 25 at Bank Street Theatre (155 Bank Street, between Washington and West Streets in the West Village).

The performance schedule is Thursday ­ Saturday at 8:00 PM and Sunday at 3:00 PM. Press Opening is Monday, May 5 at 8:00 PM. Tickets are $15. For reservations, the general public can call 212-561-9635.

The Ladies of the Corridor is a sharply funny and wryly sympathetic look behind the closed doors of New York City's Hotel Marlow. Following the death of her husband, Lulu Ames moves into the hotel and immediately embarks on a romance with a much younger man. Mildred Tynan, another resident, walked out on an abusive husband and now finds herself alone with a sadistic stranger and on the brink of alcoholism. Grace Nichols lives down the hall. She keeps her middle-aged son tied to her apron strings with the threat of exposing a terrible secret. These women, along with several other colorful characters, cross paths in the corridor of this genteel establishment, where a skeleton is hung in every closet.

From 1939 ­ 1955, Dorothy Parker co-wrote four plays: The Happiest Man (1939, with Alan Campbell), The Coast of Illyria (1949, with Ross Evans), The Ladies of the Corridor (1953, with Arnaud d'Usseau), and The Ice Age (1955, with Arnaud D'Usseau, never produced). None of Parker's plays were ever box office hits, though it has been argued that The Coast of Illyria and The Ladies of the Corridor are her strongest and worthy of more general and critical attention. In 1959 she was inducted into American Academy of Arts and Letters. On June 7, 1967, she was found dead of a heart attack in her room at Hotel Volney in New York City. She bequeathed her entire literary estate to the NAACP.

Arnaud D'Usseau is the author of the Broadway plays The Ladies of the Corridor (co-written with Dorothy Parker, 1953), Legend of Sarah (1950), Deep are the Roots (1945) and Tomorrow the World (1943).

Dan Wackerman is artistic director of The Peccadillo Theater Company. Last season, he directed the critically acclaimed revival of The Shanghai Gesture ("Lusciously lurid, more atmospheric musical entertainment than Flower Drum Song" New York Times) and the World Premiere of John O'Hara's Veronique ("Paints a bright intense picture of a vanished Village" NY Post). In 2001, he directed Eugene O¹Neill's All God's Chillun Got Wings ("This is Off Broadway at its best" Backstage) and the first New York City revival of Jig Saw by novelist and playwright Dawn Powell ("All the elements of a first rate revival" Village Voice). Prior to that, he directed an updated version of Kaufman and Connelly's Beggar on Horseback as well as Producers Presentations of John Meyer's Zazou, starring the legendary Eartha Kitt, and S.J. Perelman's The Beauty Part with Lea DeLaria (based on the 1999 Peccadillo showcase).

The cast features Kelly AuCoin, Ron Badgen, Hal Blankenship, Patrick Boyd, Peggy Cowles, Jo Ann Cunningham, Dawn Evans, Libby George, Astrit Ibroci, Susan Jeffries, Patricia Randell, Andy Phelan, Carolyn Seiff and Susan Varon.

To read the complete ruling, click here. (These are Adobe Acrobat documents; to download the free document reader, click here). We have been following this case since 1999, click here, for many documents.

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge John Keenan ordered Penguin Putnam to stop selling "Complete Poems" and set a hearing for April 21 to discuss further matters including whether there is a need for a recall of the book from retail outlets.

Silverstein's "Not Much Fun" was published by the Scribner unit of Simon & Schuster, owned by Viacom, in 1966. It contains more than 120 poems not found in other Parker collections. Silverstein, who researched and compiled the book, also wrote a 60-page introductory biography.

He had first submitted a manuscript of his compilation to Penguin Putnam in 1994 and was offered $2,000 to publish it as part of a larger collection of Parker's poems. Penguin publishes other Parker titles.

Silverstein did not accept the offer and the compilation was instead published by Scribner.

On April 21, Judge Keenan will hold a status conference where he will set a date for a hearing to determine damages and to discuss an order compelling Penguin to recall the book--that is, to pull it from bookstore shelves.

Markus was misled into thinking "Complete Stories" is a new book, it isn't, it's a re-issue with a new cover (see the Jan. 3 item below). Markus is a big fan, and writes: "I have read that Portable to the proverbial tatters in the decade or so since I bought it, and have made some progress in breaking what I know is a less-than-winning habit og reading aloud whole paragraphs at a stretch if I happen not to be alone when I have her work in front of me."

The Times had a huge tribute to him today. You can read it on their web site, nytimes.com/arts. But if you want to see a classic photo of Al, check out my friend Leo Sorel's site. He is a photographer, and his portrait here is better than the one of the front page of the Times.

I was just last week reading a piece on Al in the great book The Fun of It: Stories from the Talk of the Town (get it here, in the Book Shop, if you don't own it already, it is excellent). It was from 1958, when he was "only" 55. Last year, Hirschfeld's New York came out, if you want it. The Round Table is, of course, on the cover.

In June he would turn 100, and the Martin Beck Theatre, on West 45th Street, is being re-named the Al Hirschfeld Theater. According to the Times, just last Friday he got letters saying President Bush was awarding him a National Medal of the Arts, and that the American Academy of and Arts and Letters was electing him to the academy. He told his wife, "If you live long enough, everything happens."

"You get much more out of theater if you sit facing the stage," said Robert Benchley. Audiences are in for a wonderful evening, full of laughs when The American Century Theater and Penguin/Peacock Productions team up to present Benchley Despite Himself as the next installment of TACT's "Reflections" series, which produces new plays that explore 20th Century figures, events, and movements. The show will add humorist and Hollywood character actor Robert Benchley to the group of Americans already brought to the life in "Reflections": Orson Welles, Marc Blitzstein, Clarence Darrow, Danny Kaye and Sylvia Fine.

None of them, however, were portrayed by a relative. Robert Benchley is played by his grandson, Nat Benchley, who is a distinguished Washington-based actor with many credits in film, television, and stage, including a Helen Hayes nomination and a prominent role in TACT's acclaimed and Helen Hayes nominated The Andersonville Trial. Benchley is a chronicler of his grandfather's writing and performing career, which includes scores of skits, essays, articles and reviews, all with a trademark combination of dry wit, irony and nonsense that has been openly imitated by humorists from Woody Allen to Dave Barry, but as they would be the first to admit, never equaled. The show hop scotches back and forth among Benchley's various ventures in New York (as a member of the legendary Algonquin Round Table and Hollywood (as an actor and screenwriter in scores of films from the Depression through the Second World War).

"This was a man who was a walking series of contradictions," said Benchley. "A finger-shaking teetotaler who drank himself to death; self-deprecating Victorian Puritan who hung out with The Vicious Wits in New York; and a Worcester boy who married his childhood sweetheart and then spent his last 20 years cavorting around Hollywood and New York with a series of chorus girls and actresses."

Benchley Despite Himself runs February 6-March 1, 2003. Shows are Wednesday-Saturday evenings at 8 pm, Saturday matinees starting February 15 at 2:30 pm and selected Sunday matinees at 2:30 pm. Tickets are $24-$19 for Friday-Saturday evenings and $22-$17 for all other performances.

Benchley Despite Himself will be performed at The Theater on the Run, 3700 S. Four Mile Run, Arlington, Virginia. Tickets and information all 703-553-8782 or visit www.americancentury.org.

Shirley Anderson’s adaptation of Parker’s 1929 short story "Big Blonde" will have its Los Angeles premiere on Jan. 28, 2003 and will run midweek with some Sunday matinees at the Sacred Fools Theater in Hollywood.

From the press release:

The big blonde with the ready laugh and sense of humor has been a trendy American cultural archetype for decades, from Sophie Tucker in the 1920s to Anna Nicole Smith in the present day, with the popularity of zaftig women having a resurgence (Smith, Jennifer Lopez).

BIG BLONDE Shirley Anderson is Hazel Morse.

The big blonde of Parker’s story, Hazel Morse, is weighted down with the expectations that others (principally men) have of big blondes: that they always be charming, laughing, cheerful, good drinking companions….in a word, fun. It’s hard work playing that act all the time, and in a feminist commentary, traps women in a one-dimensional existence. Hazel is eventually battered by the suppressed melancholy side of her personality and seesaws between good times with men and depression with alcohol and pills. She still manages to be fun, though. You nevertheless want to spend time with her.

Performer/adaptor Shirley Anderson knows quite a bit about author Dorothy Parker, having won critical plaudits for portraying Parker in the play “Gatsby In Hollywood” in 2002. A self-described “theater artist and slam poet,” Anderson is an alumna of Northwestern University and Second City and in Chicago was a member of the famed Lookingglass Theater Company and the physical theater troupe Plasticene. She’s been part of the Sacred Fools Theater Company for a few years now. Early in 2003, she will appear in the Zoo District production of “The Bloody Chamber.”

Anderson’s looks somewhat evoke Parker’s, though Anderson is much prettier. Between the skills of Anderson as performer and Parker as literary icon, "Big Blonde" creates an unforgettable portrait of a kind of woman America only thinks it knows.

"Big Blonde" was previously performed in Chicago and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

WHERE: Sacred Fools Theater, 660 N. Heliotrope Dr., Hollywood. This is between Normandie and Vermont and is east of the MelroseAve. Exit of the 101 Freeway. Some onsite parking available.

WHEN: January 28- February 26, 2003. Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 8 p.m. Also, Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. on February 2 and 16.

ADMISSION: $10. Purchase of a ticket makes patrons eligible for a 50% discount to the Sacred Fools’ Monday night show, “Big Shot” (details at box office).

RESERVATIONS AND INFORMATION: (310) 281-8337.

ONLINE TICKETING: www.SacredFools.org