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Public Perspective is the Pittsburgh PublicTheater's newslettertorsubscribers andfriends, publishedperiodically throughout the season. been frequent returns to the screen and an extraordinary number of television performances, she has been primarily of the theater - in the New York theater in The Four-poster, Auntie Mame, A Very Special Baby, Enter Laughing, Riverside Drive, Barefoot in the Park, Vieux Carre and others; on tour and in stock in 0, Mistress Mine, Kind Lady, The Innocents, The Rivals, The Madwoman of Chai/lot, The Importance of Being Ernest, She Stoops to Conquer, The Little Foxes, Butterflies Are Free, and Cabaret. She was one of the earliest top dramatic stars of television, starring in such plays adapted for television as Theatre, The Letter, Dark Victory, Kind Lady, Angel Street, and Madman for which she received an Emmy nomination.
Sylvia Sidney Opens The Season In 'night, Mother Sylvia Sidney, the renowned actress of film and stage, will portray Thelma (the mother) in the Public's 1984-85 season opening production of Marsha Norman's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, 'night, Mother. Described by Producing Director Bill Gardner as "the Meryl Streep of her generation," Miss Sidney made her Broadway debut in 1927 at the age of 16 and went on to become the definitive movie heroine of the thirties and forties and subsequently one of the most distinguished character actresses of stage, screen, and television. Few of her contemporaries have matched her half century-plus of constant activity and acclaim. In recent work, Miss Sidney won the National Board of Review Award and an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of Joanne Woodward's dying mother in Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams and has rec,eived accolades for numerous-other performances: on the screen as the warmest and most rebellious of the mad women in I Never Promised You a Rose Garden and as the victim of that monster-child in Damien: Omen II; in the theatre as the rowdy landlady in Tennessee Williams' Vieux Carre; on television as the most tragic hostage in Raid on Entebbe, the most caustically funny of the foursome (with Helen Hayes, Myrna Loy, Mildred Natwick) in Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate, with
Martin Balsam, as one of the terrified duo menaced by young hoodlums in Siege, as the abrasive invalid in The Shadow Box directed by Paul Newman, and as Robert Preston's half-mad wife in Finnegan, Begin Again. Her movie roles during the Depression and post-Depression years won Miss Sidney international fame, and her screen credits include: Street Scene and Dead End, An American Tragedy, City Streets, Fury, Ladies of the Big House, Mary Burns, Fugitive, You and Me, Sabotage . . . One Third of a Nation, You Only Live Once, Madame Butterfly, Jennie Gerhardt, Trail of the Lonesome Pine,Behold My Wife, Love from a Stranger, Les Miserables, Accent on Youth, Merrily We Go to Hell, Thirty Day Princess, The Searching Wind, Mr. Ace and Blood on the Sun. She played opposite the top stars of the day - Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Henry Fonda, Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, George Raft, Melvyn Douglas, Herbert Marshall, Robert Young, Joel McCrea, Fred McMurray among others. The directors for whom she worked were all illustrious, including Alfred Hitchcock, William Wyler, Rouben Mamoulian, Josef von Sternberg, King Vidor, Dorothy Arzner, Henry Hathaway, Lewis Milestone, Arthur Penn and the formidable Fritz Lang. Ever since then, although there have
Sylvia Sidney as Madame Butterfly In the1933 film
Sylvia Sidney In the CBS-TV drama Siege, 1977
Of Russian ancestry, she was born Sophia Kosow on August 8, 1910, and, while a very young child, was adopted by her mother's second husband, Dr. Sigmund Sidney, a dental surgeon. In 1925, she joined the Theatre Guild School and was first exposed to the critics in the starring role in the school's graduation play, Prune/la. In his review of that performance, a New York Times drama critic noted that the young actress "had very definitely the qualities of charm and wistfulness, and endowed her Prunella with them in the proper proportions." Continued on Page 2
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It Long Last Legroom! Our beautifully renovated theater will be a treat for your limbs as well as your eyes. No more cramped legs (we've increased the legroom between rows from 29 to 35 inches). And no more stiff necks from twisting sideways to see the stage (every seat is 10th row center or better). We've added a new lounge, too, where you can enjoy refreshments and chat with friends before the play, during intermissions and after performances. And we've added a second box office window so that we can serve you better and faster with ticket pick-ups and exchanges. Let's give a round of applause to architect LP. Perfido Associates, general contractor Massaro Corporation, and the theater's fine technical crew for working long and hard all summer to make this much-needed renovation a reality!