The Studio Theatre of the University of Alberta drama department will now have a Larry Ewashen archive.
Aside from press documentation of Ewashen’s career in theatre, film and music, the highlight of the compilation are four letters written to Ewashen — a University of Alberta drama department graduate who now lives in Creston — by Harold Pinter, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005. The letters discussed his famous play, The Homecoming, when Larry was directing it at the Exeter Northcotte Theatre, starring members of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Pinter was notorious for not giving interviews or discussing his writing, but made exception in this case. They also met twice on social occasions.
The archive will contain the letters, programs and program notes and press clippings and reviews of the production. Featuring an “in the round” production, the play received worldwide attention. Among other international notices, it was written about by researcher Renee Salem for the Sorbonne University in Paris.
The Homecoming was regarded as Pinter’s major work, and such notices, no doubt, augmented his Nobel nomination.
Ewashen also wrote the score for the Cannes Festival best documentary film The Herring Belt. There is also a picture of Ewashen with the Queen and Prince Philip when he was their official guide when they visited the Banff School of Fine Arts.
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