Holy Cross Theatre Professor to Review His Career in ‘Last Lecture’

WORCESTER, Mass. – Steve Vineberg, professor of theatre at Holy Cross, will give a talk as part of the “Last Lecture” series on Sept. 19 at 4:30 p.m. in Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross. The talk is free and open to the public.

Funded by the Lilly Endowment Vocation Initiative, the pretext of the lecture is that the speaker is about to retire and has been asked to sum up in a final lecture to students what they believe has made the work they’ve dedicated themselves to meaningful and worthwhile. Given a “last” chance, what’s worth saying? What wisdom would be most important to pass on? What challenges have to go unfulfilled?

Vineberg holds the Monsignor Edward G. Murray Professorship in the Arts and Humanities at Holy Cross. He reviews films and theatre regularly for The Boston Phoenix, The Threepenny Review and The Christian Century. He has also been published in The New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Oxford American, Film Quarterly, American Film, and Modern Review, among others. He has served as the on-air movie critic for National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air.” His books include High Comedy in American Movies (Rowan & Littlefield, 2005), No Surprises, Please!: Movies in the Reagan Decade (Schirmer Books, 1993) and Method Actors: Three Generations of an American Acting Style (Schirmer Books, 1991). A member of the Holy Cross faculty since 1985, Vineberg teaches classes in theatre history, film, American drama and political theatre.

Vineberg has directed a number of productions at Holy Cross, including Chekhov’s The Three Sisters and The Sea Gull; Tennessee Williams’ The Eccentricities of a Nightingale and The Night of the Iguana; John Guare’s Marco Polo Sings a Solo, The House of Blue Leaves, and Lydie Breeze; Christopher Durang’s The Marriage of Bette and Boo; and Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera.

The event is sponsored by the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture.