Spotlight

June 13, 2000

Brooklyn College Presents Teleplay of Samuel Beckett's "Happy Days"

on CUNY-TV on June 25 at 9:30 p.m.

Alice Newcomb-Doyle (718) 951-5882

     Brooklyn, N.Y. -- Brooklyn College will present a rare teleplay version of Samuel Beckett's Happy Days. Produced by the College's Television Center, in conjunction with the Department of Television and Radio, the program will air on CUNY-TV on June 25 at 9:30 p.m.

     Following a successful run Off-Broadway, the production was brought to Brooklyn College's studios where the play was recorded over a two-day period. The June 25 telecast will be preceded at 9 p.m. by a discussion of Samuel Beckett's work led by Robert Engstrom of In Re Productions, who directed the stage version.

     "This was a wonderful educational opportunity for our M.F.A. students," said George Casturani, production manager of the Television Center. "They saw the play in New York and were part of the production crew here in our studios. They had a hand in the entire process."

     Happy Days was written in Paris in 1961. As he had done in many of his stage works, Beckett again explored the meaning of existence, time, and the human condition. Although Waiting for Godot (1952) had brought Beckett worldwide acclaim, he continued to work in seclusion, even after winning the Nobel Prize for literature in 1969. Happy Days has attracted a long line of distinguished actresses to the lead role of Winnie, beginning with Ruth White, who performed in the world premiere at the Cherry Lane Theater in New York. The current production features Suzann O'Neill as Winnie and Peter Glenn Niles as her companion, Willie.

     The telecast was directed by Saul Spicer and Andrea Hawks of the Department of Television and Radio, who are both graduates of the M.F.A. program at Brooklyn College.

     Graduate degree programs in television and radio have been offered at Brooklyn College for over 30 years. Production classes make use of the extensive facilities of the Television Center, which include a broadcast quality studio and digital post-production editing suites. Further information and streaming audio/video may be found at the Department of Television and Radio's Web site at: www.bctvr.org

     Brooklyn College, founded in 1930 and located on a twenty-six acre tree-lined campus in Flatbush, is one of the eleven senior colleges of the City University of New York. It enrolls 15,000 undergraduate and graduate students who are representative of the diverse population of Brooklyn and New York City. The school is nationally known for its core curriculum, which has been hailed as one of the "bright spots" in American higher education.


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