Harold Pinter, the influential British playwright whose works earned him a Nobel Prize in 2005, died in London at age 78. He had been suffering from cancer of the esophagus since 2002. The NY Times writes his "gifts for finding the ominous in the everyday and the noise within silence made him the most influential and imitated dramatist of his generation." His most famous plays include The Birthday Party, The Caretaker, The Homecoming, The Servant and Betrayal, and the Times of London explained his work "introduced a new word to the English language – Pinteresque – to convey an atmospheric silence." (More about Pinteresque, the adjective, here.) Kenneth Tynan once wrote, "Mr. Pinter is a superb manipulator of language, which he sees not as a bridge that brings people together but as a barrier that keeps them apart. Ideas and emotions, in the larger sense, are not his province; he plays with words, and he plays on our nerves, and it is thus that he grips us." more ›

Actor Roy Scheider died yesterday at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, after battling multiple myeloma for several years and suffering complications from a staph infection. He was 75 and had been living in Sag Harbor, New York (after moving out his house in Sagaponack that Billy Joel purchased). more ›

THEATER: Over the summer the Belarusian Free Theater was arrested, along with their audience, during a performance of their play Being Harold Pinter, which uses Pinter’s magnificent Nobel Prize acceptance speech as a springboard for theatrical dissent, something the Belarus police state isn't really so into. (For that reason, the company’s performances are normally held secretly in alternating private apartments.) Unable to bring the entire production to New York for his Under the Radar festival, Artistic Director Mark Russell instead invited journalist/playwright Nikolai Khalezin (pictured) to present Generation Jeans, his solo show with DJ; it’s a semi-autobiographical account of a freedom fighter and the beginning of the “Jeans Revolution.” – John Del Signore more ›

Native New Yorker Michael McKean is so identified with his ensemble work in Christopher Guest’s films – This is Spinal Tap, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind and For Your Consideration – that it’s easy to forget that he created the iconic Leonard 'Lenny' Kosnowski in Laverne & Shirley some 32 years ago. What a long, strange career it’s been, with parts in almost-entirely forgotten films like Steven Spielberg’s 1941, hits like Clue and, in the 90s, a stint as the oldest person to join the cast of Saturday Night Live. In between there’s been a whole lot of supporting roles (his IMDB page counts 174 in film and television) as well as plenty of stage work; in 2004 he took over for Harvey Fierstein in the Broadway production of Hairspray. McKean is now onstage again and very funny in the must-see revival of Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming, which also stars Eve Best, Ian McShane and Raúl Esparza. more ›

When Harold Pinter’s masterpiece The Homecoming first premiered on Broadway some four decades ago, the dramatized hostility was met with equal hostility from the bourgeois audience, as witnessed by the playwright himself:

One of the greatest theatrical nights of my life was the opening of The Homecoming in New York. There was the audience. It was 1967. I'm not sure they've changed very much, but it really was your mink coats and suits. Money. And when the lights went up on The Homecoming, they hated it immediately. 'Jesus Christ, what the hell are we looking at here?' I was there, and the hostility towards the play was palpable. You could see it. more ›

The most exciting story in New York theater this year had nothing to do with the Broadway stagehands' strike, it was the vibrant growth of what used to be called “experimental theater”, a movement that can now really only loosely be defined by what it’s not: non-naturalistic and not made for TV, with an emphasis on bold physicality, collaboration and, sometimes, multimedia. more ›

It’s not Tracy Letts’s fault that his play, August: Osage County, has been breathlessly overhyped by the critics, from the Times’s Charles Isherwood on down. It’s also not his fault that compared to many other Broadway spectacles the play stands out as a polestar of humor and intelligence. Still, it’s difficult to disassociate the play from the deafening buzz; August: Osage County is being heralded as an Important Theatrical Event, when it’s really just a well-crafted new play that happens to stand out among Broadway’s other lowbrow pygmies. (Tom Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll is well acted but as affectless as it is thought-provoking; the current revival of Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming is absolutely magnificent but, obviously, not the New American Drama critics lust after.) more ›

READING: Dave Eggers has delivered two (out of three) great novels, and tonight he reads from last one (which is just out on paperback), What is the What. He'll be at the Strand discussing the book and he'll also give a slideshow presentation from a recent trip he took to Sudan. More info here. Friday // 7pm // Strand Bookstore [828 Broadway] // Free EVENT: We love a good pillow fight, and tonight there's a... more ›

Unnamed sources are telling the Daily News and The Post that a deal between the stagehands’ union and Broadway producers is within reach. The two sides have an agreement on the main sticking point, the dispute over the number of stagehands required for a show’s “load-in” and are currently negotiating salaries. As one source put it, "Everybody is confident we can finally get this done." There’s even optimism that some shows affected by the strike... more ›

Having already seen one of this season’s most anticipated Broadway plays, Tom Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll, we haven’t been yet been personally disappointed by the Local One stagehands’ strike. While we sympathize with the union and the theatrical community that’s now out of work, we’re not exactly losing sleep over tourist tweens missing out on Legally Blonde for a few days. Now, however, we’re really starting to sweat it: though talks will resume this weekend,... more ›

EXPLORE: Last call to visit the historic Governors Island this season! Free ferry rides depart hourly right next to the Staten Island Ferry terminal. Sitting 800 yards off the southern tip of Manhattan and about 400 from the Brooklyn waterfront, it isn't often you can get a view of the city and a house like that one to the right all from the same place. more ›

DISCUSSION: Noam Chomsky will be taking questions on US foreign policy tonight, following a screening of Harold Pinter's 2005 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech. Get your questions ready, smartypants. You can watch the video of Pinter's speech here, too. more ›

THEATER: Harold Pinter’s taught two-hander, Ashes to Ashes, is running through Wednesday at the intimate Paradise Theatre in the East Village. The cryptic 45 minute one-act examines a refined couple’s quiet life at home, with the usual brutality menacing just beneath the surface. In a previous interview, Pinter blamed the male gender for the cruelty dramatized in his work, insisting that “God was in much better trim when He created women.” - John Del Signore more ›

After hearing last week that Harold Pinter won the Nobel Prize in literature, we immediately wondered how long it would be before one of his plays was on a New York stage again. Thanks to a quick visit to nytheatre.com, which looks ahead farther and more nimbly than we can, we’re able to inform you that the Atlantic Theater Company will be staging not one Pinter play but two, and in a very interesting combination: his first (The Celebration) and most recent (The Room; we won’t say it’s his last because even though he’s indicated that he doesn’t expect to write more for the theater, you just never know, and we don’t want to jinx anyone). The shows begin Nov. 16; this scheduling strikes Gothamist as pretty lucky for the Atlantic, which couldn’t have known when it was drawing up the season bill that Pinter would get the Nobel. Now there’s sure to be vastly more interest in the production than there might have been, especially since it provides an opportunity to see the way Pinter’s changed (or not) in style and ideas over the years. more ›