Writer Jhumpa Lahiri : NPR1. On a sticky August evening two weeks before her due date, Ashima Ganguli stands in the kitchen of a Central Square apartment, combining Rice Krispies and Planters peanuts and chopped red onion in a bowl. She adds salt, lemon juice, thin slices of green chili pepper, wishing there were mustard oil to pour into the mix. Ashima has been consuming this concoction throughout her pregnancy, a humble approximation of the snack sold for pennies on Calcutta sidewalks and on railway platforms throughout India, spilling from newspaper cones. Even now that there is barely space inside her, it is the one thing she craves.

Tasting from a cupped palm, she frowns; as usual, there's something missing. She stares blankly at the pegboard behind the countertop where her cooking utensils hang, all slightly coated with grease. She wipes sweat from her face with the free end of her sari. Her swollen feet ache against speckled gray linoleum. Her pelvis aches from the baby's weight.

The Jonathan Larson Grant is an unconditional annual investment in individual talent. The grant is awarded to four musical theatre composers, lyricists, and.

She opens a cupboard, the shelves lined with a grimy yellow- and- white- checkered paper she's been meaning to replace, and reaches for another onion, frowning again as she pulls at its crisp magenta skin. A curious warmth floods her abdomen, followed by a tightening so severe she doubles over, gasping without sound, dropping the onion with a thud on the floor.The sensation passes, only to be followed by a more enduring spasm of discomfort. In the bathroom she discovers, on her underpants, a solid streak of brownish blood. She calls out to her husband, Ashoke, a doctoral candidate in electrical engineering at MIT, who is studying in the bedroom. He leans over a card table; the edge of their bed, two twin mattresses pushed together under a red and purple batik spread, serves as his chair.

Goodfellas (stylized as GoodFellas) is a 1990 American crime film directed by Martin Scorsese. It is an adaptation of the 1986 non-fiction book Wiseguy by Nicholas. Invictus by William Ernest Henley.Out of the night that covers me Black as the Pit from pole to pole I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the.

When she calls out to Ashoke, she doesn't say his name. Ashima never thinks of her husband's name when she thinks of her husband, even though she knows perfectly well what it is. She has adopted his surname but refuses, for propriety's sake, to utter his first.

It's not the type of thing Bengali wives do. Like a kiss or caress in a Hindi movie, a husband's name is something intimate and therefore unspoken, cleverly patched over. Watch Last Action Hero Online (2017). And so, instead of saying Ashoke's name, she utters the interrogative that has come to replace it, which translates roughly as "Are you listening to me?"At dawn a taxi is called to ferry them through deserted Cambridge streets, up Massachusetts Avenue and past Harvard Yard, to Mount Auburn Hospital. Ashima registers, answering questions about the frequency and duration of the contractions, as Ashoke fills out the forms.

She is seated in a wheelchair and pushed through the shining, brightly lit corridors, whisked into an elevator more spacious than her kitchen. On the maternity floor she is assigned to a bed by a window, in a room at the end of the hall. She is asked to remove her Murshidabad silk sari in favor of a flowered cotton gown that, to her mild embarrassment, only reaches her knees.

A nurse offers to fold up the sari but, exasperated by the six slippery yards, ends up stuffing the material into Ashima's slate blue suitcase. Her obstetrician, Dr. Ashley, gauntly handsome in a Lord Mountbatten sort of way, with fine sand- colored hair swept back from his temples, arrives to examine her progress. The baby's head is in the proper position, has already begun its descent. She is told that she is still in early labor, three centimeters dilated, beginning to efface. What does it mean, dilated?" she asks, and Dr.

Ashley holds up two fingers side by side, then draws them apart, explaining the unimaginable thing her body must do in order for the baby to pass. The process will take some time, Dr. Ashley tells her; given that this is her first pregnancy, labor can take twenty- four hours, sometimes more. She searches for Ashoke's face, but he has stepped behind the curtain the doctor has drawn. I'll be back," Ashoke says to her in Bengali, and then a nurse adds: "Don't you worry, Mr. Ganguli. She's got a long ways to go.

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2. Directed by Mira Nair. With Kal Penn, Irrfan Khan, Tabu, Jacinda Barrett. American-born Gogol, the son of Indian immigrants, wants to fit in among his fellow New.
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We can take over from here."Now she is alone, cut off by curtains from the three other women in the room. One woman's name, she gathers from bits of conversation, is Beverly.

Another is Lois. Carol lies to her left. Goddamnit, goddamn you, this is hell," she hears one of them say. And then a man's voice: "I love you, sweetheart." Words Ashima has neither heard nor expects to hear from her own husband; this is not how they are. It is the first time in her life she has slept alone, surrounded by strangers; all her life she has slept either in a room with her parents, or with Ashoke at her side.

She wishes the curtains were open, so that she could talk to the American women. Perhaps one of them has given birth before, can tell her what to expect. But she has gathered that Americans, in spite of their public declarations of affection, in spite of their miniskirts and bikinis, in spite of their hand- holding on the street and lying on top of each other on the Cambridge Common, prefer their privacy. She spreads her fingers over the taut, enormous drum her middle has become, wondering where the baby's feet and hands are at this moment.

The child is no longer restless; for the past few days, apart from the occasional flutter, she has not felt it punch or kick or press against her ribs. She wonders if she is the only Indian person in the hospital, but a gentle twitch from the baby reminds her that she is, technically speaking, not alone. Ashima thinks it's strange that her child will be born in a place most people enter either to suffer or to die. There is nothing to comfort her in the off- white tiles of the floor, the off- white panels of the ceiling, the white sheets tucked tightly into the bed. In India, she thinks to herself, women go home to their parents to give birth, away from husbands and in- laws and household cares, retreating briefly to childhood when the baby arrives.Another contraction begins, more violent than the last. She cries out, pressing her head against the pillow. Her fingers grip the chilly rails of the bed.

No one hears her, no nurse rushes to her side. She has been instructed to time the duration of the contractions and so she consults her watch, a bon voyage gift from her parents, slipped over her wrist the last time she saw them, amid airport confusion and tears. It wasn't until she was on the plane, flying for the first time in her life on a BOAC VC- 1.

Jonathan Larson Grants American Theatre Wing. Thomas Mizer is an acclaimed lyricist/librettist and recipient of a Jonathan Larson Grant for his music theater collaborations with Curtis Moore. His work has been seen on theatrical stages around the country, including the Williamstown Theater Festival, Theatre.

Works Palo Alto, the Eugene O’Neill Center, and the NAMT Festival of New Musicals. An honors graduate of Northwestern University with degrees in Theater and English Literature, he has also completed the BMI Lehman Engel writing workshop and received an artist in residence grant from the National Music Theater Conference and ASCAP.

In a “prior” life as an actor, Thomas appeared in roles Off- Broadway and at regional theaters. He last starred as “Steve” in the First National Tour of Blue’s Clues, Live!, including two sold- out weeks at Radio City Music Hall. In addition to his work in the theater, Thomas is an award- winning advertising copywriter for major media brands such as Comedy Central and Food Network. He has written travel features for national publications including Passport Magazine and is the founding editor of The Broadway Blog, a website devoted to theater in New York and beyond. Bio as of April, 2. CURTIS MOORE is a composer, songwriter and musician whose work can be heard on the Broadway and international stage, T.

V., film, and new media. His work has been performed at Playwrights Horizons, The Old Vic Theatre, Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Public Theater, and Lincoln Center. Curtis recently composed the music for Nora Ephon's play Lucky Guy starring Tom Hanks. In collaboration with Thomas Mizer, lyricist, he was awarded the 2. Jonathan Larson Grant. Together they have written the musicals Triangle (commissioned by Williamstown Theatre Festival, subsequently presented at the Eugene O’Neill Center, Theatreworks Palo Alto, and the Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma), The Legend Of Stagecoach Mary (National Alliance for Musical Theater), and The Bus To Buenos Aires (Ensemble Studio Theater, NY).

Together, they teamed up with Amanda Green (Bring It On) and Matthew Brookshire on the critically acclaimed musical, For The Love Of Tiffany. Curtis also composed the score for Barry Edelstein's production of Timon of Athens at the Public Theater. For film, Curtis and Matthew Brookshire wrote and performed songs for the Todd Solondz’ film Palindromes (Venice, Toronto, Telluride, New York film festivals.) Three of which were short- listed by Variety for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Original Song. Other film credits include composing the score for Clear Blue Tuesday, music for Industrial Light and Magic, MTV networks, production and orchestrations for Disney’s Pocahontas II, the Miss America Pageant, and the CBS’ Rose Bowl Celebration. Most recently, Curtis composed the music for the short film Places I Can Never Go Back To.

As a producer and songwriter, Curtis continues to develop and collaborate with artists around the world. Manager Dave Lory, taken with Curtis’ song “Season For Saying Goodbye”, solicited material for his diverse roster of clients including Irish tenor Ronan Tynan and opera singer Shawna Stone.

The latter of which Curtis subsequently developed and helped secure a recording contract with EMI/Angel Records. His song “Seattle” appeared on the album “Entity” from #1 Billboard dance artist, Kevin Aviance, receiving high praise from the music press. Other artists he has worked with include Wafah Dafour, Ari Gold, Sara Ramirez, and two American Idol finalists - *Dilia and Karen Rodriguez. He recently returned from conducting and performing the music in The Bridge Project’s acclaimed world tour of Richard III, directed by Sam Mendes and starring Kevin Spacey. This concluded three years of work with The Bridge Project (a joint production of BAM and The Old Vic) as Mark Bennett’s associate composer and music supervisor for The Cherry Orchard, The Winter’s Tale, As You Like It, The Tempest, and Richard III.

As orchestrator, he has also worked with Mark Bennett on The Coast of Utopia, as associate composer and orchestrator with Mel Marvin on Cymbeline, and as music director for Moisés Kaufman’s production of Into The Woods. Curtis has provided orchestrations for Striking 1. The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin, Saved, and the London revival of Pippin. His new stage musical Venice, written with Matt Sax and Eric Rosen, premiered as a joint production between The Center Theater Group in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Rep, and was presented in a sold out- extended run at the Public Theater in New York in 2. Awards include “Best Composer Award” at the ASCAP/NYU Film Scoring Workshop, “Garland Award” for best score for a musical, and multiple grants from the Eugene O’Neill Music Theater Conference. He is a graduate of Northwestern University and a founding member of the Northwestern University Entertainment Alliance.

Curtis is currently based in New York, NY and enjoys volunteering his time and talent to The Actors Fund, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, and the Ali Forney Center. Bio as of April, 2.