CSM Twilight Series Ends 10th Season

The 10th season of the College of Southern Maryland’s Twilight Performance Series has come to an end. For another year audiences were captivated by Chautauqua’s historical portrayals of 20th-century composer Duke Ellington, poet Gwendolyn Brooks, and novelist Ernest Hemingway, as well as musical and theatrical performances.

Chautauqua is an interactive, family-friendly presentation. The educational program of Maryland Humanities is presented in partnership with CSM. The theme for this year was “Masters of Their Craft,” and celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Pulitzer Prize by featuring three recipients, Ellington, Brooks, and Hemingway.

Ellington was portrayed on stage by Tevin Brown, a vocalist, pianist, and actor from Baltimore who graduated Berklee College of Music. Ellington was regarded as one of America’s greatest composers and was an incomparable showman with a career of more than 50 years. He won several awards due to his talent and skill, allowing him to collaborate with legendary musicians like Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Count Basie. Ellington dropped out of high school in 1927 and pursued music full time. Because of his efforts and hard work, he won a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 and posthumously a Pulitzer Prize in Music in 1999. On May 24, 1974, when he was 75, Ellington died in New York City. To hear Brown’s take on Ellington and his takeaways for the audience, visit here.

Brooks was portrayed on stage by Dorothy Mains Prince, the founder of Sojourns, an educational enterprise that bridges the lives of outstanding African-American women to community groups nationwide. Brooks was the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize, earned for her anthology “Annie Allen.” A native of Chicago, Brooks was able to write about the black experience simply by looking out her window. Brooks succeeded Carl Sandburg as the Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968; from 1985-86, she was Consultant in Poetry for the Library of Congress; and in 1995, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Bill Clinton. On Dec. 3, 2000, when she was 83, Brooks died at her home in Chicago. To hear Prince’s take on Brooks and her thoughts on Brooks’ poetry, visit here.

Hemingway was portrayed on stage by Brian Gordon Sinclair, who wrote “Hemingway On Stage” and is a graduate of The National Theater School of Canada. Hemingway was an accomplished athlete in his youth, excelling in his English classes. He worked as a journalist after high school. After he volunteered for the Red Cross driving an ambulance in World War I in Europe, Hemingway left the Red Cross and returned to the U.S. after his legs were injured. He began working at The Toronto Star and was sent to Paris as a correspondent. There, he met and collaborated with several writers and artists including Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, Ezra Pound, and James Joyce while working on his own novels and poems. Hemingway earned the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954 for “The Old Man and the Sea.” On July 2, 1961, at the age of 61, Hemingway died in Ketchum, Idaho. To hear Sinclair describe the takeaways for audiences, visit here.

Chautauqua is a program of Maryland Humanities presented in partnership with the College of Southern Maryland. The Maryland Humanities is an independent non-profit organization which receives support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Maryland Division of Historical and Cultural Programs, corporations, foundations and individuals. For information on Chautauqua, visit here.

Poetry Reading Of Contemporaries Offered Prior to Brooks’ Portrayal

As an introduction to the Chautauqua performance by Dorothy Mains Prince in portraying poet Gwendolyn Brooks, CSM instructor Rachael Heinhorst from the Languages and Literature Division offered a poetry reading from several of Brooks’s contemporaries.

Heinhorst’s reading list included the works of:

From Le Roi Jones (Amiri Baraka), “Snake Eyes”  and
“Short Speech to my Friends”

From Rita Dove, “Reverie in Open Air,”  “Dawn Revisited,”  and
“Persephone, Falling”

From Langston Hughes, “I Look at the World,” “Mother to Son,”  and
“Theme for English B”

From Lucille Clifton, “alabama 9/15/63,” , “why some people be mad at me sometimes,” “blessing the boats,”  and “won’t you celebrate with me”

Twilight Performances Series are funded in part by a grant from the St. Mary’s County Arts Council, awarded by the Maryland State Arts Council.

For more about the College of Southern Maryland, visit their Leader member page.