An Eye for History Speaks
Several years ago, David Douglas Duncan made the outstanding gift of his archives to the Photography Collection of UT-Austin’s Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. As writer Sam Martin noted in a cover story on the photographer three years ago (“An Eye for History,” April 23, 1999), Duncan was “one of the most accomplished and prolific photojournalists of the tumultuous 20th century, taking part in every major military conflict from World War II to Vietnam. He was on board the USS Missouri during the Japanese surrender. He was the first Westerner to photograph the Russian treasures inside the Kremlin and the first to introduce the West to the Nikon camera. In the Forties and Fifties, he worked for Life magazine. He captured the British departure from India and the birth of the Israeli state. He has photographed Bassari warriors in Africa, Russians in Afghanistan, and Democrats in the United States. He shot Ava Gardner in Paris, Nixon in Bougainville, Eisenhower in Guam, and, for 17 years, Pablo and Jacqueline Picasso in the south of France.” The David Douglas Duncan Endowed Lecture Series in Photojournalism was named in his honor, and this week the man behind the camera returns to Austin to inaugurate that series. You can hear that speech, “Photographing Faces: Fun, Fury, and Under Fire,” Tuesday, April 9, 7pm, at Bass Lecture Hall, 2313 Red River. Admission is free.
Jouét Touches Down in Print
The Spring 2002 issue of Show Music magazine features a review of the CD for the homegrown musical Jouét. Alongside a photo of native daughter Meredith McCall as the globetrotting diva is this evaluation: “Initially produced at the Zachary Scott Theatre Center in Austin, Texas, Allen Robertson‘s Jouét (Original Cast Records 6004; 45:49) was seen at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, Kentucky, in July 2001. Performed as a one-night-only Internet concert by international superstar Jouét, determined to reveal the story of her scandalous life, this unusual musical owes a great deal to the charisma of its star, Meredith McCall. She is front and center for the 10 plot advancing numbers on the recording, delivering them with big voiced power and total conviction in a variety of styles, from cabaret chanteuse to hard-driving rock singer.”
Don’t Cry for G., Argentina
Congratulations and bon voyage to Gerard Lebeda. The soulful Seymour of Zachary Scott Theatre Center’s recent Little Shop of Horrors is off to tour Europe in the show that introduced him to Austin audiences, Evita. Lebeda will play the lounge lizard Magaldi (and cover for Che, the role he played at Zach) in the six-month tour, which kicks off April 15 in Munich, Germany.
This article appears in April 5 • 2002.