Indiana University Press blog

Author event: Beth Holmgren to lecture at the University of Toronto

Beth Holmgren, author of Starring Madame Modjeska, will give a lecture about her book at the University of Toronto March 8. The University of Toronto's Polish Language & Literature Program will sponsor the event, and it will be held in Father Madden Hall in St. Michael's College from 6 to 9 p.m. Visit University of Toronto's website to learn more about the event. 

Book review: Starring Madame Modjeska

"[A] fastidiously researched and fascinating portrayal of an actor’s life. ... While theater enthusiasts will enjoy the care and detail that Beth Holmgren took with Starring Madame Modjeska: On Tour in Poland in America, readers of history will appreciate the role this woman played on the world’s stage. It makes for great drama." —NewPages

Book review: Starring Madame Modjeska

"Starring Madame Modjeska offers insight into not only the prodigious life of a captivating actress who crafted her own unique romantic acting style as well as her public persona; it also provides a colorful portrait of the nineteenth-century theatre." —Cosmopolitan Review

New book traces life of actress Helena Modrzejewska

On this day in 1840, actress Helena Modrzejewska was born in Krakow, Poland. She is the subject of a new biography by Beth Holmgren. In Starring Madame Modjeska, Holmgren traces Modjeska's fabulous life and career from her illegitimate birth in Krakow, to her successive reinventions of herself as a star in both Poland and America, and finally to her enduring legacy.

After enjoying a successful acting career in Poland, Modrzejewska emigrated to southern California in 1876. Within a year she made her debut in the title role of Adrienne Lecouvreur at San Francisco's California Theatre. She changed her name to Modjeska and quickly became a leading star on the American stage, where she reigned for the next 30 years. During this time, she established herself as America's most esteemed Shakespearean actress, playing opposite such celebrated actors as Edwin Booth and Maurice Barrymore.

Read more about Helena Modjeska

Book review: Performing South Africa’s Truth Commission

"In this beautifully constructed and densely argued volume, Cole attends to actors, scripts, and audiences, and also to the literary and artistic renderings that carried the TRC hearings to a nation and to the world." —Interventions

Two IU Press books receive IPPY Awards

We are pleased to announce that two IU Press books are winners in this year's Independent Publisher Book Awards! Indiana Barns by Marsha Williamson Mohr tied for silver in the Great Lakes Regional Non-Fiction category and Albee in Performance by Rakesh H. Solomon took bronze in the Performing Arts category. The winners were honored at a gala awards ceremony held in New York on May 23.

Established in 1996, the "IPPY" Awards seek to recognize great titles published by independent authors and publishers. Its regional awards recognize those titles with the best regional focus. To learn more about the award, please visit the Independent Publisher website.

IU Press author to speak at Washington and Lee University

Beth Holmgren, author of the forthcoming book Starring Madame Modjeska, will speak on "Framing Polish Jews: What Happens When Film Usurps Reality" on Wednesday, May 11 at 7:30 p.m. at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. 

The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information on the event, visit the Rockbridge Weekly website. 

Beth Holmgren is the author of several IU Press books, including Women’s Works in Stalin’s Time and Russia, Women, Culture. She is Professor of Slavic and Eurasian Studies and Theatre Studies at Duke University.

Book review: Albee in Performance

"Rakesh Solomon's insightful study ... appeals to a broad spectrum of readers. ...[The book] not only fills a major gap in Albee scholarship, but it also contributes to theatre studies. ...[A] fascinating and quick read for those interested in Albee's plays as written and produced." —Theatre Topics

Book review: Albee in Performance

"Solomon usefully contextualizes Albee in relation to Beckett, Pinter, and other dramatists for whom such totality of vision is (or was) a significant dimension of their practice. At the same time, though, one of the strengths of this book is in demonstrating just how collaborative a theatre artist Albee is..." —New Theatre Quarterly

Book excerpt: Albee in Performance

Rakesh H. Solomon's new book, Albee in Performance, details Albee's directorial vision and how that vision animates his plays. Having had extraordinary access to Albee as director, Solomon reveals how Albee has shaped his plays in performance, the attention he pays to each aspect of theater, and how his conception of the key plays he has directed has evolved over a five-decade career. Solomon writes:

Albee’s comments about his texts and productions...are part of an ongoing dialogue that I have carried on with him for nearly three decades. Journalists and scholars have sought and received more interviews from Albee than from most other contemporary American playwrights, both because he continues to provoke interest and because his frequent lecturing, teaching, and directing oblige him to grant interviews. My long professional relationship with Albee and my thorough acquaintance with the particulars of his rehearsals, however, allow me to press, persist, and probe much further than others.

In this excerpt from the book, Solomon interviews Albee about one of his most famous plays, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Excerpt: Albee in Performance