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• Lawson Taitte's review of P. T. Barnum

• Front Row's interview

• PegasusNews' interview

• Theater Jones' interview

Monologist Mike Daisey has picked up the sit-down mantle from the late Spalding Gray. It's not just the desk and the solo talk, it's the way he interweaves comedy and his personal life into topical stories and social commentary. His account of his brief career with Amazon.com, 21 Dog Years, ran off-Broadway for six months and got Daisey on the chair chatting with David Letterman.

But Daisey is perhaps best known in theater circles — perhaps 'infamous' is more accurate — for his controversial show, How Theater Failed America. Water Tower Theatre's Out of the Loop Festival is currently presenting Daisey in five different shows: four of his "Great Men of Genius" monologues (P. T. Barnum. Bertolt Brecht, Nikola Tesla and L. Ron Hubbard), only the second time the entire cycle has been done — plus on Monday,  How Theater Failed America.

Immediately following Monday's performance, Daisey will moderate a panel of local theater figures — Water Tower artistic director Terry Martin, Dallas Theater Center artistic director Kevin Moriarty, actress Denise Lee and myself — to discuss the topics he raises in Failed, in particular the way the resident theater movement is now set up, in Daisey's view, to keep management employed in handsome buildings at the expense of all the other artists involved.

• KERA radio report:

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Admit it: the second you walk into someone’s home for the first time you begin making judgments about them based on what you see. “He must get paid pretty well to afford those hardwood floors.” Or “That leopard print couch is kinda tacky, don’t ya think?”

Photographer Piotr Chizinski’s new exhibit at Richland College tries to quantify those judgments. Chizinski photographed the living rooms of homes in Lubbock. He then superimposed markers onto each photo that point out the positives and negatives of the space. And he attached a chart to each photo that shows how much those positives and negatives are worth. (Click here to see the chart.)

Hardwood floors earn four points. Shag carpet deducts four. And so on. Each room starts out with 100 points – considered middle class – and from there they are slotted into a class system that ranks from low proletariat to upper class.

Chizinski says the whole setup of his show, called “Inhabitants,” should provoke discussion about the social value we attach to objects.

CHIZINSKI: “It really kind of starts the idea and then lets people argue out the nuances.”

Chizinski discovered the scoring system while researching class in America. It was created in the 1930s by sociologist Frances Stuart Chapin, who was interested in quantifying social classes. A few updates have been made to reflect shifts in attitudes. But for the most part, we appreciate and disparage the same things today as we did 75 years ago.

For example, the living room of someone who sifts through trash bins to make ends meet earned the lowest score: six points.

On the other end of the spectrum is a 90-year-old philanthropist’s living room, which scored a whopping 330 points and landed her in the rarified “upper class” strata.

CHIZINSKI: “You can see here all the artwork and the carpets and the fact that the carpet is threadbare in places, but it’s an enormous Oriental carpet, so it’s a huge plus. And then fireplaces, and this philanthropist was obviously interested in original works of art, antique furniture – all those things obviously played a part.

Still, even Ms. Moneybags had a few points deducted.

CHIZINSKI: “The family pictures were not in sterling silver frames. That’s the only way to turn a family photograph into a positive score. But they get good points for window treatments and all sorts of curved moldings.”

Chizinski did his best to be fair with the project. To that end, he made sure to light each room the same. And he even shot his own living room, which scored him as “high proletariat.”

CHIZINSKI: “Which I feel was accurate. One of the things that hurt me, too, was my own art in the house.”

After all, original art work by family members or the householder earns a negative eight for each infraction.

CHIZINSKI: “After that, I didn’t leave so much of it around, especially by the front door.”

After looking at the exhibit and its rating system, visitors may start to rethink their own living rooms.

Should I replace those fake flowers with real ones? That’s an eight point swing! And why should I get docked a point for my upright piano when a baby grand earns plus four?

CHIZINSKI: “It’s just something odd to take away from looking at an art piece in a gallery – having it immediately affect your life and you’re actively making a decision based on what you’ve seen.”

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to track down some back issues of The New York Review of Books for my coffee table. Those babies are worth five points a piece.

Soldaderas, by Robert Runyon

Guest Blogger Tina Aguilar teaches Humanities and Cultural Studies at Brookhaven College School of the Arts.

Last weekend, I attended a lecture event, “Remembering the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920” at the Center for Greater Southwestern Studies at the University of Texas at Arlington.  Three significant photographic exhibits are on display through April: “Mexico: The Revolution and Beyond: The Photographs of Agustín Victor Casasola, 1900-1940” from the Archivo Casasola; “La Tierra y su Gente: The Rio Grande Photographs of Robert Runyon,” from the holdings of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin; and from UTA Special Collections, “Images of Conflict.” All three document the transnational experience and commemorate the forthcoming Mexican Revolution Centennial.

Dr. Sam W. Haynes, Director of the Center for Greater Southwestern Studies, shared his insight into the background and significance of these photography exhibits and history:

Soldados, Archivo Casasola

Tina Aguilar: Tell me about the Center for Greater Southwestern Studies and your inspirations for scholarship and sharing content with the public.

Dr. Sam W. Haynes: The center exists to promote awareness of and scholarship about the American Southwest. We tend to frame that mandate rather broadly, hence the term “greater southwest.” This is my first year as center director, and one of the things I’d like to do is more community outreach than we have done in the past. The Mexican Revolution Centennial events are our first attempt to do so.

T. A: These are three powerful collections to share with the community. The juxtaposition between rural and modern is apparent, as well as the documentation of place and identity. How did you decide to showcase these exhibitions?

S. W.H: Because our center focuses on the Southwest, not just Mexico, we wanted to put together three exhibits that stress the bi-national implications of the Mexican Revolution. The Agustín Victor Casasola exhibit is certainly the most impressive, but we thought the photographs of Robert Runyon and William Horne, photographers from Brownsville and El Paso, respectively, would help round out the exhibit, since they tend to cover the conflict from the United States side.

T.A: You mentioned that you learned about and unearthed the photographs in “Images of Conflict” and put it together. When you find new threads of history like this, it must be like being in a candy store or, for fellow history enthusiasts, a visit to a place like the Library of Congress as you coordinate and make selections.

S.W.H: Special Collections has always had a pretty sizable collection of photographs on the Revolution, but they had never been digitized. Over the summer, I went through them and identified a large number that I thought had the most historical value. We then decided it might be a good idea to organize the photos around a narrative of the Revolution, since people coming up to the center on the sixth floor might not have a solid background in the major events of the conflict. The challenge was in identifying photos that would help tell that story effectively. It was fun for me to construct the narrative in this manner.

Boy Soldier, by Robert Runyon

T.A: What about Robert Runyon’s photographs?  Can you tell me about his eye and the environment he was documenting?

S.W.H: Robert Runyon was one of many Americans who tried to cash in on the Revolution. Unlike Horne, though, he married into a Mexican-American family when he moved to Brownsville, and this seems to have given him a far greater degree of engagement. The Boy Soldier is the most riveting, I think, and he has become the motif of the Mexico Centennial events. Another one I like very much, though, is the photograph of the crowd of refugees at Charity House in Brownsville, as it reflects the beginning of Mexican migration into the Southwest.

T.A: Where does the information about the history and photographs come from in preparation for such an exhibit?

S.W.H: I wrote up the narrative for “Images of Conflict” and the brochures for the photography exhibits. Doug Richmond, a center fellow and the history department’s historian of this period, edited the copy. Chris Conway, a professor of modern languages, translated the “Images of Conflict” text into Spanish.

T.A: Last Saturday’s public educator symposium, “Remembering the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920,” brought together Mexican/Chicano scholars from across North Texas to discuss a historical overview of key events and players who represent the rich, complex layers of Mexican history. The UTA history department’s Webb Series is an academic conference at which papers will be presented by national and international distinguished scholars. What can people expect with the forthcoming two-day conference, “Conflict and Consolidation, 1910-1940?”

S.W.H: The history department has been holding the Webb lecture series annually for 45 years. They are named after Walter Prescott Webb, a famous historian of the American West who taught at UT-Austin, but they cover a wide range of topics. Last year’s focus was on German travel literature, for example. Since the center was already focusing on the Revolution to commemorate the Centennial, the history department decided to do the same. Papers will be presented on the violent social upheaval that took place in Mexico from 1910 to 1920, as well as efforts to implement the political and social goals of the Revolution in the decades that followed by Carlos Martínez Assad, Don M. Coerver, Miguel Angel González Quiroga, Stephen E. Lewis, Francisco E. Balderrama, Jürgen Buchenau, Linda B. Hall and Thomas L. Benjamin. John Mason Hart will write a forward to the volume with this series, which will be published by Texas A&M University Press.

Dr. Sam W. Haynes continues research in his areas of specialization, 19^th Century United States History, Texas History and, most recently, a new book about Transatlantic History. He invites guests to attend the Walter Prescott Webb Memorial Lectures on March 10 from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., March 11 from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and to the Keynote Address with Professor Thomas L. Benjamin that evening at 7:30 p.m. All lectures will be in the Central Library, Sixth Floor Parlor, with the exception of the final lecture on Thursday, which will be in the E.H. Hereford University Center, Rosebud Theatre). To visit all three photography exhibits, Sixth Floor hours are Monday  from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Tuesday  to Saturday  from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m., closed on Sunday. The Center for Greater Southwestern Studies encourages visitors to call ahead (817.272.3997) to make sure a representative is available to greet guests.

Robert Runyon photos courtesy of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin

Art&Seek presents This Week in Texas Music History. Every week, we’ll spotlight a different moment and the musician who made it. This week, Texas music scholar Gary Hartman looks at a singing group that was founded in the 1800s but still performs today.

You can also hear This Week in Texas Music History on Friday on KXT and Saturday on KERA radio. But subscribe to the podcast so you won’t miss an episode. And our thanks to KUT public radio in Austin for helping us bring this segment to you.

And if you’re a music lover, be sure to check out Track by Track, the bi-weekly podcast from Paul Slavens, host of KERA radio’s 90.1 at Night.

• Click the player to listen to the podcast:

• Expanded online version:

On Feb. 24, 1867, German Texans living in San Antonio founded the Beethoven Mannerchor, a men’s choral group. As with other German-Texas singing societies, the Beethoven Mannerchor was intended to help preserve and celebrate German heritage through music. The group performed regularly throughout Texas and constructed its own concert hall in 1895. When that burned down in 1913, it built the Beethoven Hall, which is still in use today. The Beethoven Mannerchor eventually expanded to include a women’s choir and children’s choir. Despite widespread persecution of German Texans during both world wars, the Beethoven Maennerchor and several other German singing societies managed to survive and continue to perform at festivals and other events throughout the state.

Next time on This Week in Texas Music History, we’ll celebrate a poor farm boy who became a “king.”

• Theater Jones' video interview

• KERA radio story:

• Expanded online story:

Teatro Dallas has been presenting its 14th annual International Theater Festival this month. Theater artists have come here from Mexico, Spain and Belgium. Teatro Dallas wraps up the festival this weekend at the Latino Cultural Center with a solo performance artist from an exotic, faraway land.

Miami, Florida.

Actually, Teo Castellanos’ one-man performance is about just one street in Miami – Northeast Second Avenue, which is the title of Castellano’s stage show.

CASTELLANOS: “Since it goes all the way from downtown to North Miami Beach, it’s a great, you know, thoroughfare. But it also has changed demographically over the past couple of decades.”

So Second Avenue cuts through Haitian neighborhoods, Cuban, Jamaican, Puerto Rican and African-American neighborhoods. Second Avenue is also where a private transit system runs. It’s a small Caribbean bus known as a jitney. The show follows the jitney, its driver and passengers as they interact with a wandering white tourist who’s lost.

Castellanos himself is Puerto Rican-born but Miami-raised. NE Second Avenue is partly drawn from his own life. But he also researched Latino history and sub-cultures — even dance moves. Castellanos never really trained as a dancer, he says. But the lean, muscular performer picked up steps from gay bars and Latin nightclubs. More than most performance artists, he delineates his different stage characters through the ways they move.

He also conducted interviews that went straight into his show.

CASTELLANOS: “This is an example of an interview. I walked into an African boutique. I think I went to buy a kufi [an African cap]. And I saw a bucket of flags – you know, there’s the Jamaican, the Haitian, the Ethopian – [interview fades out as Castellanos’ stage performance comes up] – black power flag, Cuban, Puerto Rican flag, Nazi flag, KKK flag – right next to the cowrie shells and the African mask!

[pause]

Now what’s wrong with that picture?

[Music kicks in.]

Obviously, NE Second Avenue is about more than just a street in Florida. Otherwise, who would care about it outside of Miami? But after developing the show in Florida in 2001, Castellanos took it all the way to the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. It won the Fringe First Award. In the eight years since, the writer-actor-director has developed group shows with D-Projects, his hip-hop dance-theater collective. He also offers workshops to prisoners in detention centers and to students. While in Dallas, he did both — at Booker T. Washington Arts Magnet, for instance, he taught teacher Elly Lindsay's playwrighting class (below)

But he’s continued to tour NE Second Avenue throughout Europe and the United States – to places that may never have encountered a Rastafarian.

CASTELLANOS: “Well, I’ll quote Victor Hugo: ‘Speak of your village, and you speak universally.’ We all have immigrants in our neighborhoods and in our nations. You know, we all face the same issues. Really, what the piece is more about is our commonalities, at our deepest roots and our spiritual highest. I always say that because [laughs] that’s the truth.”

In the past 20 years, performance artists like Eric Bogosian, John Leguizamo, Anna Deavere Smith and North Texas' own Fred Curchack have perfected the solo show, stage performances in which a single actor plays all the roles. With their quicksilver changes of character, such pieces can be a chance for an actor to show off his chameleon talents. They also can be explorations of the different sides of a single psyche. But in NE Second Avenue, Castellanos wants to embody an entire city: gay, straight, male, female, Latino, black, Christian, Muslim, Jew.

Miami becomes our hybrid, mulatto American culture – even our human condition.

CASTELLANOS: “That cross-pollination exists throughout the U.S. Whether it be inter-racial marriage, whether it be Cuban Jews — they don’t only exist in Miami and in Cuba – Rastafarians and Jamaicans. You know, we Miamians are all over the world! [laughs]”

[Conga drum kicks in.]

KERA guest commentator Patricia Mora is a writer living in Dallas who has studied in the U.S. and abroad. During her career, she’s written about art and architecture in a variety of media. She earned a Master’s degree in Humanities and has studied Comparative Religion under Harvard professor Diana Eck. This is the next installment in her series on overlooked masterpieces in local collections. In January, she discussed Barbara Hepworth's Squares with Two Circles at the Nasher Sculpture Center.

• Click here to listen to the KERA radio commentary:

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Charles Sheeler’s painting Conversation — Sky and Earth is a new acquisition of the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth. It shows a bright blue sky rimmed below by heaping, reddish rubble and the white concrete of Hoover Dam.  Rising in the foreground you’ll see angled electrical scaffolding and wires dividing the sky into severe, geometric shapes. The piece is so precisely rendered that brushstrokes are nearly invisible. In fact, one could easily mistake Sheeler’s painting for a photograph.

Many people would resort to the historical context of this painting. They would remind us that Hoover Dam was regarded as a great feat that would fuel, among other things, the city of Las Vegas.  From that they would construe that the artist is celebrating an auspicious moment in which science triumphed over nature.  But that wouldn’t be art; it would be a presumed truth and a platitude.  Those are the very things that reduce art into something thoroughly manageable via a particular person’s psyche.  I suggest that this painting — and art generally — is always more complex than any of our constructs.  Art will always transcend any “-ism,” any theory or system.  One of the only things in our tradition large enough to give us an understanding of art is mythology.  And by myth, I don’t mean quaint fairy tales told to children.  I refer to the greatest and deepest of stories that serve as allies in discovering truth at its most basic and, in some ways, its most simplistic form.

In this painting, the operative myth is Prometheus.  As you’ll recall, Prometheus is the Greek god who rebelled against the divine order to deliver fire to mankind. And, just as many people view Prometheus as the precursor to Christ, some people will view this engineering phenomenon as a bit of technological salvation.  The strident electric poles and wires traversing that cerulean sky suggests there’s something inherently stellar about their very existence.  They rise far above the terrain.  The “science,” so to speak, is so imposing that it wins our sight, our vision.

On the other hand, others will see it as an assault on the landscape, an addendum that is unwelcome and, ultimately, something for which we’re currently paying an all-too-high price in our “green” world. Like Prometheus, who got his just desserts for his rebellious act, we’re also paying for our planetary rapaciousness. Clearly, this is serious business. And while the Promethean story is a myth, a supreme fiction, I can think of nothing else that offers such deep ingress into what’s really at stake in this painting. Why? Because myth is the only thing that can simultaneously hold both points of view in perfect balance.

What makes Conversation — Sky and Earth a truly great painting is that we don’t know precisely what the artist thought about any of these questions. The painting has no agenda and it offers no list of rules.  It transcends ecological precepts and simply puts forth a glorious image that envelops the viewer.  But because images educate, we’re wiser — and able to pose deeper and deeper questions.

Guest Blogger Tina Aguilar teaches Humanities and Cultural Studies at Brookhaven College School of the Arts. Last week, she wrote about Stewpot Director Cynthia Brannum.

What do we see, and how?

Velietta Dickens Rogers, a self-taught artist whose inner beauty shines through her paintings, welcomed me into The Stewpot Art Program studio to visit with her about her outlook and art. Just as she took time to get to where she is now, she follows a certain curiosity with her painting. She takes time to paint and explore the world around her. She discusses how the Stewpot Art Program changed her life in this week's Art&Seek Q&A:

Tina Aguilar: The work I see here in the studio is intimate and honest. Would you talk to me about your art?

Velietta Dickens Rogers: Art is everything to me. It takes me a while to do my landscapes. You can’t just throw something on a canvas. It’s how you feel about it. I have this one painting, Pink Sun, and the image was in my mind a long time. It took me a while to get it to a point where I felt like it was right. I work in my dining area, my studio, and I would go back and forth to the washer and dryer. I would look at it and decide what to do. This image is from an early morning. I could see the light between the trees. Nature changes in such marvelous ways, and once you get a pattern you can see where it takes you in your mind and spirit. I just can’t sit and complete my work fast. Painting is very spiritual to me.

Cliffs, by Velietta Dickens Rogers

T.A: So what is that process like?

V.DR: I have pieces that I work on for a while, and then I let Cynthia [Brannum] look at them as I am ready to share them. She might tell me that I need to shade or add to a certain part of it. I can look at a painting, but I sometimes feel like it’s not quite ready. Cynthia has a great eye. She can see and say what is missing if I ask her. She tells me, “you don’t have to do this, but it’s just a suggestion …”

T.A: This is very human work here at the Stewpot. You found out about this art program through your health advocacy group because you wanted to seek out an art program?

V.DR: Yes, I asked my case manager about anything relating to art. I went through a list of advocacy organizations, and then I found The Stewpot because I noticed the art program description. So I called and left a voice message. It was one of those automated numbers and I waited about a month, but no one called me back. So I decided to come down here myself. It seemed like a good place, and I tried it. When I first started coming here, I was nervous and I wouldn’t talk to anyone. And as I decided to start painting, I found comfort, a healing and my path with art. It took time to get out of my environment, and this was the only place I would come.

T.A: How did you get to know this community?

V.DR: At first I would just sit, read and watch. Slowly, I gained a new part of myself and felt safe. This was not a feeling that I had in the past. My daily life was about being closed up. Soon I started “watching” out loud and making friends. Some would sigh when I would walk in, because they said, “Oh no, here she comes and she’s going to talk a lot.” As I watched everyone work they got to know me and I would make comments or ask questions of the other artists. I was stuck in my experiences before I found this place. Then the anger and pain went away through my art. All artists are different. We look and see differently. I learned that I want to be around others. There is something about being around other artists. There is a great feeling that keeps you coming back. Everyone supports each other and talks each other up as the creative process continues. It has been almost a year and a half now, and it is because of this place that I opened up. This is important work they are doing here, and we help each other. I have grown from the friendship and community.

T.A: Tell me how you get your ideas?

V.DR: My early paintings have dealt with my life history, and those works were therapeutic. Before I found the Stewpot, I used to buy Wal-Mart painting kits for about $20. Painting helped me get parts of myself out and allowed me to move beyond my fears. As I said, I take my time with my work. I used to watch others doing several paintings in, what I thought, was a short period of time and I wondered why couldn’t I do that. I like to look at how some of the Impressionist masters – Pissarro, Monet and Degas – work. I try different strokes, because I love texture. I will look at paintings for a long time to see the details. I pass the Arboretum when I am on the bus, and I always see things. Also, I keep a camera near me when I am watching television, Channel 13, and snap photos of things I like. In fact, I do not have the money to travel, but I can with Rick Steves. I can take a picture of whatever place he is in, if I like it, and can imagine about it. I can’t afford to travel anywhere, but I can with him.

T.A: What are some first experiences with art that you can recall?

V.DR: My mother introduced us early. We were able to visit the Museum at Fair Park when I was growing up. Something always seized me with the forms. This is something I catch myself doing today – staring. People think I am looking at them when really it might be the way they are sitting in a chair or the chair itself. I like to look at things.

The Seashore, by Velietta Dickens Rogers

T.A: What about your work in the studio?

V.DR: I kept using the materials here, and it made a difference than what I bought for home. I noticed there was something wrong with my packet at home. The feel of the paint was different. Then I started to take some paints from here and use them at home. It helped me with my work. I love the Art Program. Being here has introduced me to new things that enhance my creativity. When Cynthia took us to the Impressionist exhibit at the Kimbell Art Museum, I was able to see work up close and it took my breath away. As an artist, I want to know how others work.

T.A: What are some new techniques or areas of interest for you?

V.DR: Progress with pastels is the latest for me. I have recently read in one of the magazines here in the studio about how one artist uses gesso acrylic and a certain type of gel. Because I like texture, I would apply paint and it wouldn’t puff up like I wanted. Through the openness and opportunity of good supplies and experimentation, I am able to strengthen my work. So Cynthia is helping me with this so I can start trying it.

T.A: Do you visit a lot during the week, and what does your family think of your work?

V.DR: I am here at least two days a week. When I see someone isn’t here, you just miss them. We are like a family. Before I found my art, I was always busy with other things that today do not interest me the same. Both my daughter, Lillian, and my son, Elmer, support my work. My kids appreciate me and give me encouragement. They know I am all about my art. My immediate family is very supportive, just like my Stewpot family.

Velietta Dickens Rogers’ work can be seen in the Second Floor Gallery at The Stewpot by appointment. She continues to explore new techniques and, most recently, the images of the Buffalo Soldiers.

Pink Sun, by Velietta Dickens Rogers

In the Saturday Spotlight, we're looking at the intersection of art and architecture. CentralTrak, the artists residency at the University of Texas at Dallas, opens a new exhibition called Transitive Pairings. The show features three installations conceived by architects and artists working together. An opening reception will be held tonight from 6 to 8 p.m.

• Unfair Park's obit and follow-up.
  

• KERA radio story:

• Expanded online story (earlier version appeared as a blog post):

Lillian Moore Bradshaw died earlier this week at the age of 95. Bradshaw was the director of the Dallas Public Library, 1962-1984 — the first woman to run a big-city library system.

I met her only once — we were introduced at a library reception. But in 1998, the Dallas Public Library was part of a new bond election. I was a book critic and wrote a feature on it. The library system had suffered from years of severe cutbacks that led to leaky roofs and overworked staff. But it was hard getting city officials to talk frankly about the lack of new books and the increased demands on libraries for tax help, English classes, job re-education.

It was hard until I talked to Lillian Moore Bradshaw. Everything I have to say about Bradshaw comes from just two phone calls. But I can’t convey the delight a journalist feels in finding someone as sharp and honest as she was. True, she was no longer in office, so she didn't have a job to lose. But I got the distinct impression that a little thing like political safety wouldn't have stopped her. I occasionally laughed in surprise at the blunt statements she made, precisely the things city administrators never say.

Bradshaw more or less got the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library built (above). She had the reputation of being a smart politician. But this smart politician was also fearless when it came to defending intellectual freedom — which she had to do practically the moment she started running the library when Dallas City Council members wanted to pull some books off the shelves. Bradshaw went on to become the city’s liaison with the Republican National Convention, yet she had no truck with book banners, conservative or liberal.

The same went for defending the library. The city’s money-saving policy of “deferred maintenance” in the '90s, she said, just meant the trash piled up. People who felt the library shouldn’t own rare expensive works — these people, Bradshaw said, wanted a library to stick to “grade school reading lists.”

Yes, she believed in the library’s educational purpose. But she saw it as much more. The public library is one of the great inventions of American democracy. The internet wouldn't exist without libraries pioneering the free access to information. Bradshaw saw the library as practically a cornerstone of human cultural endeavor.

And in talking to Bradshaw, I understood why Tennessee Williams once said that, despite Dallas’ reputation as a man’s town, the city’s real spirit was in its women.

And, I’d add, its librarians.

Feel free to recount your own memories of Lillian Moore Bradshaw. Her funeral will be held at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 16, at Restland Memorial Chapel.

• SMU Daily Campus story

• KERA radio story:

• Expanded online story:

The former dean of one of the most important drama schools in the country will be the next chairman of the Southern Methodist University theater department.

Stan Wojewodski, Jr. ran the Yale School of Drama and the Yale Repertory Theatre for 11 years — teaching and working with some of America's most talented stage artists. This fall, he will succeed Cecil O'Neal as the chair of SMU's theater department.

Jose Bowen, dean of SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts, said that because Wojewodski has directed professional theaters, taught students and run a college, he was "the best of all possible worlds" to head the department.

BOWEN: "The biggest issue was convincing him to go back into administration. He came here because he could direct again. I had to convince him that he could still do that and direct the department."

As a graduate conservatory, Yale has produced such actors as Paul Newman, Sigourney Weaver, Edward Norton and Meryl Streep — and such playwrights as Christopher Durang and John Guare. Yale Repertory shows have won eight Tony Awards — and the theater itself has won a regional Tony Award. But Wojewodski says that he left Yale in 2002, in part, because when you add his time running Center Stage theater in Baltimore, he’d been an artistic director for 25 consecutive years. That’s why he chose just to freelance, directing different shows around the country. He didn't want to be "institutionalized" any longer, he said with a laugh.

In fact, Wojewodski was in town in 2004 staging The Importance of Being Earnest at the Dallas Theater Center when SMU approached him about talking informally to faculty and students. Wojewodski was familiar with SMU's program, having worked with the earlier generation of graduates — once known as the "SMU Mafia" — including actor Kathy Bates, playwright Beth Henley and the late Guthrie Theater director, Garland Wright.

It was just an informal talk at SMU, but a student asked Wojewodski if he missed being dean. No, he said, but he missed teaching. That led faculty members to ask if he'd like to teach there.

At SMU — where Wojewodski became an artist-in-residence in 2005 — he found it was different teaching undergraduates, and teaching these undergraduates, whom he found to be smart and committed.

WOJEWODSKI: “I was delighted by what I found. It was very challenging and really, really rewarding.”

Wojewodski became a tenured professor at SMU but has continued to freelance — he's directing Samuel Beckett's Endgame at the Undermain Theatre in April. Then, when Cecil O’Neal decided to retire, Wojewodski was asked if he'd like to replace him.

WOJEWODSKI: “I really resisted it for[laughs] for what I think of as a long time. And then faculty members and Cecil and Jose proved to be very persuasive. And I also discovered – I had no idea when I came here that I would miss that kind of ongoing contribution to a community.”

Wojewodski’s appointment as chair of SMU drama runs for three years.