Sat 11/18 @ 7PM
Writer/cartoonist James Thurber (1894-1961) was one of the 20th century’s most famous humorists, whose witty works were widely disseminated in The New Yorker and provided grist for films such as The Male Animal and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. The iconic title character of the latter has become the symbol for the ineffectual little person with person with grandiose daydreams.
A native of Columbus, Ohio, he attended The Ohio State University (then lacking the “The”) and later wrote briefly or the Columbus dispatch before moving to New York in his early 30s.
Thurber’s work will provide the material or WordStage Literary Concerts next production, A Cavalcade of Thurber. It kicks off with an excerpt from a Paris Review interview with Thurber in which he discourses wittily on topics such as his writing process, his cartoons and illustrations, friend, other writers and the things that happened in his life that fueled his work.
Then it moves on to reading of some of his stories such as “The Little Girl and the Wolf,” “The Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing,” and “The Unicorn in the Garden,” underlined with wacky music to emphasis the stories’ quirkiness.
The one-night-only performance takes place in Wright Chapel at Lakewood Presbyterian Church. Go here for more information.