Thursday, 6:30pm
Free admission.
Sponsored by the SCNY Program Committee.
About the lecture:
Playwright Linda Selman recounts from her book, The Inadvertent Researcher: A New York Story, how the painting principles of the Hudson River School of Art, the Ashcan School, and the Tonalist Movement found in Edith Wharton’s first New York novella “Bunner Sisters,” led her to discover unknown works of art housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New-York Historical Society, and the Salmagundi Club, while adapting the narrative for the stage. Written in 1891, but not published until 1916, the story focuses on the drama and hopes of the poor, the immigrant, and the disenfranchised as they attempt to eke out meaningful lives in the tenement houses and overcrowded streets of the city. These findings culminated with her discovery of an “American Bloomsbury” community in Nutley, New Jersey where art influenced literature and literature influenced art. And ultimately, to a leader in a movement that changed the tastes of America and established cultural standards still revered today – Henry Cuyler Bunner, grandnephew of Alexander Hamilton, editor-in-chief of Puck magazine, father of the New York Story genre, and a founder of the reform-minded Independent Party.
About the speaker:
Linda Selman has developed, directed and written works for Off-Broadway including the two Emmy Award-winning Bubbe Meises/Bubbe Stories, From My Lady’s Diary:Marie Antoinette, Tallulah Hallelujah! Starring Tovah Feldshuh, and Bunner Sisters at the Metropolitan Playhouse Gilded Age Festival. (The first presentation of Bunner Sisters was in 2006 at the Salmagundi Club.) In November of 2017, Nutley, N.J. inducted Henry Cuyler Bunner into their Hall of Fame. Ms. Selman accepted the honor for the Bunner Family and also co-curated with the director of the Nutley Historical Society, John Simko, the exhibition “The World of H. C. Bunner: Changing the Tastes of America from New York to Nutley.” Ms. Selman is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and Chair of the Theatre Committee at the National Arts Club.
Her beautiful book, The Inadvertent Researcher: A New York Story will be available after the lecture for signing and purchase.
Dining Room opens at 5:30pm. Attendees can dine before or after the presentation. Reservations are required. Please call 212-255-7740 to make a reservation.
On February 14, 2018, the Times Literary Supplement published a newly discovered lecture by Edith Wharton, “France and Its Allies at War: The Witnesses Speak,” translated by Virginia Ricard (University of Bordeaux). Professor Ricard is co-editor of volume 29, Translations and Adaptations, of the Complete Works of Edith Wharton, a 30-volume series under contract at Oxford University Press.
