Airea D. Matthews, Emma Copley Eisenberg, Nikil Saval, Warren C. Longmire, Jacqueline Goldfinger, Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow, and Greg Pizzoli come through with book recs this holiday season.
by Julia Shipley, For The Inquirer
Dec 19, 2022
Philadelphia is packed with literary talent. We chased after some of the city’s finest to ask what projects they’re working on, and got them to suggest what books (and tickets!) to gift this holiday season.
Author Jacqueline Goldfinger is a Philadelphia-based playwright and author of “Playwriting with Purpose” and “Writing Adaptations and Translations for the Stage” (co-written with Allison Horsley).
For your loved one who wants words that leap off the page … and onto the stage
Who: Jacqueline Goldfinger is a Philadelphia-based playwright and author of Playwriting with Purpose and Writing Adaptations and Translations for the Stage (cowritten with Allison Horsley), published by Routledge. They are also the cofounder and director of creative affairs at Tripwire Harlot Press.
Currently working on: Goldfinger’s opera, Alice Tierney, will premiere at the Oberlin Opera Company in January. The libretto, written in collaboration with Philadelphia-based composer Melissa Dunphy, is based on an infamous true murder story from the days of colonial Philadelphia and features Penn archaeology students who excavate Tierney’s home to figure out what really happened to her. Goldfinger is also premiering a new choral work, A Bright Morning Dawns with Philadelphia conductor and composer Dominick DiOrio of the Mendelssohn Chorus. And their new play, Backwards Forwards Back, will premiere in 2023.
Holiday season rec: Three Plays by Christina Anderson, Rarities and Wonders by Phillip Howze, and Doodles from the Margins: Three Plays by Hansol Jung. Fans of Anderson’s play, How to Catch Creation, (produced at Philadelphia Theatre Company), and fans of Jung’s plays, Wolf Play and Among the Dead — both performed at Theatre Exile — will enjoy the latest works from these powerful playwrights. Goldfinger says these books include visual art alongside the text, “They’re mini-performances on the page.”