Bree Van de Kamp  is a fictional character on the ABC television series Desperate Housewives. She was played by actress Marcia Cross, who received multiple awards and nominations for her portrayal, including an Emmy Award nomination, three Golden Globe Award nominations, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. Cross' portrayal of Bree was widely praised by critics and fans.

Cross auditioned for the role of Mary Alice Young, but series creator Marc Cherry thought she was better suited for the role of Bree. Dana Delany, who was eventually cast as Katherine Mayfair, was chosen for the role but turned it down, saying it was too similar to her role in Pasadena.

Bree's main struggle throughout the series was her attempts to maintain a perfect life despite various obstacles such as widowhood, divorce, and alcoholism hindering her. She married Rex Van de Kamp (Steven Culp), Orson Hodge (Kyle MacLachlan), and Trip Weston (Scott Bakula) and had relationships with various other men.

Character profile
Bree Van de Kamp is one of the four main protagonists in Desperate Housewives. Bree grew up in Rhode Island when her father married a woman named Eleanor, after her mother's death, with whom she did not get along. In order to escape her stepmother's demands, Bree left for Lake Forest College near Chicago. Bree also mentioned on one of Eleanor's visits that she had to work for every kind word she was  ever given by her stepmother. Bree met Rex Van de Kamp at a meeting of the Young Republicans. After they graduated, they married and had two children, Andrew and Danielle, and moved to Fairview.

Bree was very much written as an exaggerated version of the characteristics often attributed to White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Americans; she has been called a "hyper-uptight WASP". Bree is recognized for her perfectionistic attitude and work ethic, which at times bordered on neurosis and obsessive–compulsive disorder. While the writers shied away from an official diagnosis, the character is recognized as having obsessive–compulsive personality disorder. The character herself refers to her "quirks" in terms of anal retentiveness but Rex once mentioned it by the name. Bree's perfectionism may stem from when her mother was killed in a hit-and-run; a 10-year-old Bree cleaned her blood off the road outside the house. She said that once everything was spotless, she felt much better.

Bree is known for her homemaking talents at the level of Martha Stewart, particularly her gourmet meals, breakfast treats, and pineapple bran muffins. She is also well versed in firearms; she owns four guns and is a card-carrying member of the National Rifle Association. Bree supports the Republican Party, as stated in the season 3 opener, and was also known for being a member of the local Presbyterian church, as seen in the episode, Sunday. Her neighbors, Angie Bolen, Gabrielle Solis, and Renee Perry, nicknamed her "Nancy Reagan" on occasions.

Bree lived at 4354 Wisteria Lane in Fairview since 1994 and was also said to have a timeshare residence in Aspen that she never uses. Bree is based on creator Marc Cherry's own mother, and the Van de Kamp family is based on the family in which he grew up. Bree's family was based on Marc Cherry's teen years, while Lynette Scavo's family was based on Marc Cherry's childhood years. Bree and her first husband, Rex, were both named after the overtly vain characters on two of Marc Cherry's previous failed sitcoms, The 5 Mrs. Buchanans (Bree) and The Crew (Rex).

Both of Bree's marriages broke down and ended in divorce (however, Rex died before their divorce was finalized); following their requests for divorce, both of Bree's former husbands attempted reconciliation with her. Rex succeeded, whereas her second husband, Orson Hodge, did not. During the breakdown of her second marriage, Bree had an affair with Karl Mayer, her divorce lawyer and the ex-husband of her friend, Susan Delfino. However, Bree did remarry in the series finale to her lawyer, Trip Weston, making him her third husband.

Bree is the only one of the main four housewives to not appear in every episode. Appearing only as a stand-in in "My Husband, The Pig", Bree is totally absent in its six following episodes ("Dress Big", "Liaisons", "God, That's Good", "Gossip", "Into the Woods", and "What Would We Do Without You?") due to Cross' pregnancy.

Storylines

Backstory
Bree Mason was born in 1962. When she was 10 years old, her mother taught her a lesson about "masking" so she could hide true feelings and emotions, which prevented her from being able to be hurt by men. Shortly after, during Christmas 1972, her mother died in hospital after a car accident. Bree stayed at home and cleaned her mother's blood from the driveway. She felt relieved after that. Her father then married Eleanor (Carol Burnett). Bree had to earn respect from her stepmother and so worked very hard. Eleanor said to her stepdaughter that she was very lucky and possessed beauty, wit, cunning, and insight: weapons all women needed to survive in the world. Her dad took care of his daughter and tried to raise her to be a classy lady.

Bree was first engaged to her boyfriend, Ty Grant, but after she met Rex Van de Kamp, the two fell in love during their college years. Bree and Rex got married in 1987. Bree gave birth to their son Andrew in 1988 and daughter Danielle in 1989. The family moved in 1994 to 4354 Wisteria Lane, Fairview. She gave a bad first impression to Mary Alice Young and Susan Mayer, local neighbors and friends, after Andrew stole a ceramic frog from the Youngs' backyard. Bree, Susan, and Mary Alice later become close friends. In 1998, Lynette Scavo joined the group. Five years later, after a short and difficult first impression of Gabrielle Solis, all four women accepted the ex-model as their friend.

Season 1
Bree is introduced as the "perfect" wife and mother. However, it becomes apparent that her emotional coldness and obsession with appearances makes her family resent her, and as her husband Rex puts it, "I just can't live in this detergent commercial anymore".

She insists she and Rex have marriage guidance counseling with Dr. Albert Goldfine (Sam Lloyd) when he wants a divorce and demands that Andrew and Danielle refuse presents from their father if they want to continue living with her. Unfortunately, in Andrew's case, this leads to him driving drunk and accidentally running over Carlos Solis's mother, leaving her in a coma. Rex and Bree conceal this to protect him but Bree is soon disappointed with his lack of remorse. Determined to make him realize that there are consequences to his actions, she gets him kicked off the swimming team by planting marijuana in his locker and then anonymously tipping off his coach.

Bree is determined to keep her family together until Rex has a heart attack, leading her to discover that he regularly visits a prostitute. Worse still, the prostitute turns out to be an acquaintance of hers, Maisy Gibbons (Sharon Lawrence), who is later arrested for living off of immoral earnings. Maisy is persuaded to cut a plea deal with the district attorney, naming her clients, and despite a request from Bree, Maisy does not remove Rex's name. Furious, Bree tells Rex she will divorce him but is "persuaded" by Andrew and Danielle to look after him while he recuperates. Initially wanting to hurt him, Bree starts dating their pharmacist, George Williams (Roger Bart), but ends things when Rex asks her to give their marriage another chance. She and George agree to be just friends. Wanting to deter Rex from visiting prostitutes, she reluctantly takes part in S&M scenarios with him.

Concerned about Andrew's worsening behavior, she is cheered up when Rex backs her up on one occasion. Unfortunately, this fails to make any difference, so Rex and Bree feel that they have no choice but to send Andrew away to a boot camp. While there, Andrew reveals to his parents that he is gay. Bree initially tells him that she will always love him regardless but quietly insists to Rex that they take Andrew home immediately, worried about what he might be doing with the other boys at night, and asks their vicar to give Andrew some counseling on lifestyle, believing that his soul is in danger. This has disastrous results, as Andrew thinks she doesn't love him and deliberately hurts her. Bree continues to confide in George about her family problems but, after Rex makes it clear that Bree will stay with him, George begins tampering with Rex's medication. This is uncovered when Rex has a second heart attack. Believing Bree was responsible, Rex writes a note forgiving her and dies. Bree's final scenes in the season involve her receiving the bad news and breaking down in tears.

Season 2
Bree's mother-in-law, Phyllis (Shirley Knight), visits for her son's funeral. She annoys Bree with her constant sniping and excessive displays of grief to the point that Bree refuses to let her attend Rex's funeral, but Andrew persuades her to. The final straw, however, is when she discovers that Phyllis has reported her friendship with George to Rex's life insurance provider. Bree sends Phyllis home and is questioned by the police about meddling with Rex's medication. She is cleared and is furious when she discovers the note Rex had left her which claimed he thought she murdered him, and she starts dating George. However, George constantly tries to rush things, making her uneasy. When George places an announcement of their engagement in the newspaper, an ex-fiancée of his, Leila Mitzman, visits Bree to warn her about him. Bree is horrified and sends Leila away, but she is proved right when George loses his temper upon seeing Bree dance with Ty Grant, and she also finds out that he assaulted Dr. Goldfine for suggesting to Bree that she take their relationship slowly. George tries blackmailing her into a reconciliation by taking some pills and admits to killing Rex. Devastated, Bree says that she has called an ambulance and it will be there soon, but in reality, she hasn't. She watches him die and tells Andrew, who tries blackmailing her for his trust fund.

Events with Rex, George, and Andrew take their toll and she starts drinking heavily. She realizes she has a problem when she loses Lynette's children after passing out while babysitting. Andrew later begins making accusations about Bree physically abusing him and tries to seek emancipation rights, which Bree refuses. In denial, but not wanting Andrew to get his trust fund or give up on him, Bree joins Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) but only takes it seriously after passing out in a shop changing room and not waking up until late at night. Her AA sponsor, Peter McMillan (Lee Tergesen), and a security guard let her out. Bree also faces more turmoil when she discovers her new neighbors, the Applewhites, are hiding from the police and she is blackmailed into silence. To distract herself from her alcoholism, she has a brief relationship with Peter, who is addicted to sex. However, Andrew discovers this and seduces Peter to get revenge on Bree for denying him his trust fund. She dumps Peter and throws Andrew out after discovering that they slept together and in her bed.

Bree's mental health deteriorates rapidly following this and nobody can help her as her behavior becomes erratic and spirals out of control, including creating a scene at Danielle's birthday party. Danielle, meanwhile, starts dating Matthew Applewhite and moves out to be with him. However, Matthew's mother, Betty Applewhite, realizes Matthew murdered an ex-girlfriend, Melanie Foster, but made her believe his brother did it. Betty tells Bree, who has checked herself into a psychiatric unit and later escapes after they refuse to let her leave. Bree and Betty rush to Bree's house to find Matthew and Danielle have taken money from Bree's safe. Bree confronts Matthew about Melanie and refuses to let them leave, so he threatens to shoot her, only to be shot dead by a police sniper. Bree's final scenes involve her beginning a new friendship with the mysterious Orson Hodge.

Season 3
After a six-month relationship, Bree marries Orson, but their marriage is troubled by the belief that Orson physically abused his first wife, Alma (Valerie Mahaffey), and murdered her. She becomes overwhelmed with guilt to see Andrew on TV, reduced to living on the streets, and tracks him down only to be rebuffed. Shortly after the wedding, Orson persuades Andrew to come home and they reconcile.

However, the arrival of Orson's mother, Gloria (Dixie Carter), and Alma's return cause more trouble. They drug and rape Orson but Bree intervenes, learning that Gloria murdered Orson's mistress, Monique Polier, so he would stay with Alma. Gloria tries to kill Bree but Orson intervenes. Gloria has a severe stroke after Orson holds her head under water to get her to let go of the knife with which she is trying to kill Bree. Orson carries Gloria's body outside and places it next to Alma's body — Alma having died when she fell off the roof of her house while trying to escape to warn Bree about Gloria.

Danielle, meanwhile, finds herself pregnant by Edie Britt's nephew Austin McCann (Josh Henderson). She is sent away so the neighborhood won't learn of her pregnancy and Bree and Orson decide to fake a pregnancy so they can raise Danielle's child as their own.

Bree is not in episodes 3.16 to 3.22 as she is on honeymoon with Orson and Danielle. Bree returns for Gabrielle and Victor's wedding, heavily pregnant, or so it seems...

Season 4
Bree and Orson struggle to make people think she is pregnant but is dismayed by people wanting to feel the baby move. Phyllis discovers Bree's pregnancy hoax and tries convincing Danielle to raise the child herself. Bree and Orson, however, persuade Danielle to give them the baby by offering to send her to college and buy her a convertible. Danielle has a baby boy and gives him to Bree — who names him Benjamin Tyson Hodge (surname later changed to Katz) — and agrees that Bree and Orson will raise him.

Bree develops a rivalry with new neighbor, Katherine Mayfair (Dana Delany). Bree and Katherine are very similar, leading to a series of feuds before eventually becoming friends and going into business together, catering dinner parties.

After a tornado damages Bree's house, she, Orson, and Benjamin stay with Susan and Mike Delfino. During this time, Orson begins sleepwalking, twice being caught naked by Susan. Things come to a head when Julie catches him confessing to running over Mike. While Mike and Susan are willing to forgive Orson for his crime, Bree is horrified and kicks him out. During their separation, Edie Britt comes onto Orson, leading to a feud between her and Bree. Edie discovers Benjamin is Bree's grandson and attempts to blackmail her. Bree, however, tells the other housewives the truth, so they all snub Edie.

In the season finale, Katherine saves Bree's life by telling her ex-husband, Wayne Davis (Gary Cole), her secrets. When Katherine kills Wayne, Bree and the other housewives tell the police that Katherine was terrified of a stalker so that she doesn't go to prison.

When the events of the series shift ahead by five years in the fourth-season finale, it is revealed that Bree is now a famous cookbook author, and Andrew works with her as her assistant. Bree and Orson have evidently worked out their problems and are still together.

Season 5
Bree has just published her own cookbook, and is successfully running the catering business. She and Orson reconcile after he went to prison for running over Mike. A flashback sequence reveals that while Bree awaited Orson's release, Danielle returned and took Benjamin, leaving her completely alone. Devastated, Bree relapsed into alcoholism but overcame it, thanks to Katherine.

Bree puts her career first, alienating her friends at times and causing a rift between her and Orson. As revenge, Orson begins stealing, initially to punish people who he feels have been rude and to hurt Bree. Orson agrees to stop stealing, but when he is injured while attempting to rob an old woman (and indirectly causes Edie's death when she crashes her car into a telephone pole trying to avoid him) and tries to convince people that the old woman is senile, she decides she has had enough. She hires Karl Mayer as her divorce lawyer, who helps her stage a fake burglary so she can hide her precious/expensive assets in a storage unit and not risk losing them in the divorce proceedings. However, Orson discovers her plan, threatening to send her to prison for insurance fraud unless she stays with him. Bree agrees reluctantly but shares a passionate kiss with Karl.

Season 6
Initially, Bree is unwilling to sleep with Karl, despite her marriage being strained.  Orson, however, is determined to salvage their relationship, commenting that guilt is sometimes necessary for happiness, and defending his use of blackmail so that she'll stay with him. Bree takes this motto as her own and consummates her affair with Karl.

When Julie is hospitalized after being attacked, Bree worries that she will lose Susan's friendship upon hearing that Susan would hypothetically no longer talk to a friend who dated Karl. However, Karl's fragility convinces Bree he needs her and she begins falling for him, acknowledging her feelings when they attend the same event and Karl brings another woman. This distracts her from her business, causing her to only realize the extent of Katherine's instability when an event is ruined. Bree dismisses her and, after getting to know new neighbor Angie Bolen (Drea de Matteo), hires her instead. Meanwhile, Karl's romantic gestures make their affair harder to hide. Suspicious, Orson gets Angie to spy on Bree. She discovers the affair, and helps Bree hide Karl when Orson comes home early and attempts to catch them in the act, but afterwards challenges Bree about her feelings for these two men. As Bree sees it, she connects intellectually with Orson but sexually with Karl, and is worried that their relationship will only ever be physical, despite his promises to change.

Bree's fears are realized when Susan catches her and Karl together at a motel. They fight, but despite her initial unhappiness, Susan eventually gives them her blessing. In order to get away from Orson, Karl suggests Bree threaten him, which she does by hiring an ex-con Orson met in prison to meet with him, and capturing the meeting on a hidden camera. She takes the pictures to Orson, which serve as proof of him breaking his parole, and demands a divorce. Stunned, Orson tells Bree that he wouldn't send her to prison for fraud and goes to pack, but discovers her affair with Karl when Karl confesses to him at the annual Wisteria Lane Christmas block party, in part due to the fact that he'd hired a plane to fly a banner over the party with a message asking Bree to marry him.  A fight breaks out between the two men, and Bree tries intervening, to no success. The fight is ended when the pilot of the banner plane suffers a fatal heart attack at the controls and the plane subsequently crashes into the party, killing Karl and leaving Orson paralyzed.

Feeling guilty, Bree insists Orson come home so she can look after him but he is disgusted by her infidelity and takes advantage. Angry about his lack of manners and personal hygiene, Bree hoses him down but stops when he explains how angry he is with the way his life is now. Wanting to help, Bree gets two disabled men to visit, but Orson asks her to let him kill himself, telling her that he wants to die because no one loves him. When asked, Bree can't say the words, but seeing Orson trying to drown himself at a party of an old married couple with such passion causes Bree to realize that she still wants things to work with Orson. She stops him by telling him how much she cares and wants to recapture what they once had, and they reconcile.

A young man named Sam Allen (Samuel Page) visits Bree, offering himself as a new assistant. Impressed by Sam's skills, Bree promotes him to vice-president, much to Andrew's anger. While visiting Sam's home, Bree is stunned to learn that Sam is a son that Rex had from a relationship he had prior to meeting Bree. Sam admits that he's spent years watching Bree's family, wondering why Rex chose them over him, and after his mother's death, came to see Bree. Shocked by this, Bree welcomes Sam into her life but finds herself at odds with Andrew, who suspects Sam has an ulterior motive. Sam plots to make Bree fire Andrew, which she does, but after she reveals that she and Andrew have a love-and-hate relationship, it's likely that Andrew will return. After she tells Orson about a sabotaged dinner, suspecting Andrew, Orson points out that Andrew couldn't be responsible because it was well planned, making Bree suspect Sam's true intentions. She discovers that Sam's mother is still alive and reveals that Sam found a letter from Rex, offering to take full custody of him. Bree confronts Sam about his lies and he angrily smashes a vase before leaving. She apologizes to Andrew but tells him and Orson she's not firing Sam for fear of how he might react.

In the season finale, Bree does try firing Sam but he retaliates by revealing he's found out about Andrew's hit-and-run years before (a drunken Danielle told him). He threatens to tell the police unless Bree turns over control of the company to him. Bree reluctantly agrees to do so, while telling Sam she feels sorry for him losing his chance to be part of a family and suspects no one will ever truly care for him. Orson, who had not known what Andrew did, calls out Bree on the hypocrisy of demanding he go to jail for running Mike over but hiding Andrew's crime. He is both appalled and furious at Bree for this and announces he's moving out. Bree tells Andrew she now knows Orson was right and is seen about to confess to Gabrielle.

Season 7
Bree confesses to covering up the demise of Carlos' mother. Gabrielle chooses not to tell her husband. After discovering her ex-husband has a new girlfriend only a week after they separated, Bree decides to redecorate the ground floor of her house, hiring Keith Watson (Brian Austin Green) to help, but finds herself attracted to him. While looking at him from her car, she does not see Juanita Solis (Madison De La Garza) behind her before reversing, leading to Juanita being admitted to the hospital. Upon finding out that Keith has a girlfriend, she agrees to go out clubbing with Renee Perry. She finds out that Keith broke up with his girlfriend, but he is instead going home with Renee. Bree sabotages their night and eventually asks Keith on a date. This begins Bree and Renee's fight over Keith.

Later, Bree only mentions to Keith's father Richard that she's finally a divorcee. Learning this, Richard, who has been having feelings for Bree, tries to make a move to destroy Bree's and Keith's relationship so that he can have Bree instead. Keith attempts to propose to Bree and after the second failed attempt, Keith begins to question his relationship with Bree. Richard manipulates Keith's mind by warning him that Bree might be using him as a diversion from her actual feelings after her divorce from Orson. As a result, Keith begins to avoid Bree. Richard then abruptly kisses Bree, and after he leaves, Bree tells Keith everything about his father's attempts to tear them apart. Later, Keith confronts Richard about this and has a fistfight with him but when rioters, who are opposing Paul Young's plan to open a halfway house for ex-convicts on Wisteria Lane, see the two fight, they mistake Keith for an ex-convict due to his tattoos and ex-convict-like clothing and begin to attack him. Bree breaks up the fight by firing a gun into the air. This triggers fear and panic among the rioters and supporters for the halfway house alike, thinking this is an assassination attempt, culminating in a human stampede that spirals out of control.

Bree is thrown when Orson returns, claiming he was dumped by his girlfriend. Keith is annoyed at how Bree is willing to let Orson stay with them. Over dinner, Orson makes it clear he doesn't think Keith is a good choice for Bree as they have nothing in common and Orson understands her more, with the two even resorting to throwing food at one another. Bree goes to see Orson's ex, who reveals that Orson was the one who broke up with her as he's still in love with Bree. She confronts him and Orson confesses how he feels and thinks Bree is too good for Keith. Keith is angered at Bree continuing to want Orson to stay with them, saying that she's still in love with Orson. Bree responds by shoving him down in her manure-covered lawn, getting herself dirty, to prove how much she's changed. When one of Keith's old girlfriends comes by, Bree is suspicious and discovers the woman has been raising Keith's son. She mentions children to Keith, who seems unsure whether he is father material. Bree goes to the girlfriend, lying about how Keith doesn't want to know the child. Keith finds her cutting up her roses as she says "you have to be ruthless to protect what you want". Bree meets the woman later to lend her money and when she leaves her son in Bree's care, Keith drops by the pizza parlor. Seeing Keith and the boy instantly bonding, Bree is overcome with guilt and confesses to Keith that the boy is actually his son. Keith desperately wants to be with his son, but he doesn't want to leave Bree, so he pitches the idea of moving to Florida with Bree but she refuses to leave her home and friends. The next day Bree makes the ultimate decision and tells Keith that he must go to Florida for his son. She sacrifices their relationship and Keith leaves.

Bree discovers that Andrew has started drinking again, so much so that his husband leaves him. She encourages Andrew to go to rehab but is jarred when he decides to make amends by telling Carlos about running over his mother. When Carlos invites Andrew on a camping trip, Bree and Gabrielle fear the worst and follow them. Seeing Carlos with a bloody towel and a dirty shovel, Bree blurts out what Andrew did, just before her son enters the cabin. Carlos is outraged over this but eventually forgives Andrew. However, when Bree comes to thank him for not pressing charges, Carlos coldly tells her he won't forgive her for hiding the truth all these years, that they're no longer friends, and that she and Gabby can no longer be friends.  Bree ends up taking Gabby and her daughters into her house when Gabby leaves Carlos after telling him that she refuses to end her friendship with Bree.  While the Solises are staying with Bree, she has a run-in with Detective Chuck Vance (Jonathan Cake), who was on Wisteria Lane to check on parolee Felicia Tillman.  Juanita Solis calls the police and tells them that Bree is trying to kill her and Celia (after Carlos tells her about Bree's involvement in her grandmother's death). Chuck responds to the call at Bree's home and Carlos sorts everything out, explaining that the girls misunderstood what he had told them. Chuck leaves and gives Bree his number, and the Solises move out of Bree's and back with Carlos.

Chuck later returns to give Bree his number again after assuming she'd lost it since he hasn't received a call from her. Bree then agrees to go out on a date with him that night and when Bree tells this to Renee, Renee runs a background check on Chuck and reveals to Bree that he's still married (though he had filed for divorce a year ago). At dinner, Bree confronts Chuck with this information but Chuck retaliates by telling her that he had also run a background check on her, therefore becoming more aware of Bree's past. Offended, Bree abruptly ends their date and as Chuck drives her home, Chuck catches a hooker in the street and brings her back to her women's shelter. There, Chuck tells the hooker (who believes that she'll be a hooker forever) that she can turn her life around, pretending to reveal that Bree once was a prostitute and she had turned over a new leaf by going to school and starting a massive catering company. Moved by Chuck's sincere words, Bree gives Chuck a second chance and the two agree to go out on another date afterwards.

During the "progressive dinner party" celebrating Susan's return to Wisteria Lane, Bree (along with Lynette and Susan) walks into Gaby's house to discover that Carlos has murdered Gaby's abusive stepfather Alejandro Perez. She spearheads the decision to cover up the murder to protect Carlos, thus earning his forgiveness for keeping the secret about his mother's hit-and-run for all those years.

Season 8
Following their agreement to cover up the murder of Alejandro, Bree's relationship with Chuck begins to suffer. She finds herself constantly paranoid that he will discover her involvement and uses sex as a way to distract him. She then receives a note exactly like the one Mary Alice received when she shot herself. She then seeks out the counsel of Paul Young, asking if he was the one who sent it. Upset over the fact that Bree may still judge him for his past, he sends her away. However, he later calls her back, urging her to tell the other housewives to spare her Mary Alice's fate and reveals to her the only other person who he told about the note to was the cop who was looking into Martha Huber's death, Chuck. At first suspicious, Bree decides to break up with Chuck when he tries to propose. He does not take it well, telling her she is making a big mistake. Danielle returns, having been dumped by her husband, and Bree is at first supportive until she finds out her daughter is now selling adult swings to make money.

Having avoided church over her guilt in hiding Alejandro, Bree is convinced to help Ben Faulkner in cooking for a soup kitchen. When a passing college student raves over her cooking, the kitchen is soon home to regular people, not the homeless, and Bree realizes that she has wrongly prioritized her own culinary career over helping people. She tells everyone to leave, giving a speech on how the soup kitchen is meant to help the less fortunate. Ben is impressed and has Bree give a speech to the city council to convince them to let Ben build a homeless shelter in Fairview. Bree is initially happy about helping Ben until she realizes the spot Ben is about to break ground on is where the girls buried Alejandro. She, Gabrielle, and Lynette go to dig the body back up only to find it gone. It turns out Ben found it earlier, thinking he was just a drifter, and Bree convinces him to help keep it quiet. However, Bree soon finds Chuck is suspicious and putting together clues to prove what the girls did. The pressure soon drives Bree to break her sobriety and pour herself a drink.

Chuck starts to dig deeper into Gabrielle's stepfather's disappearance. Gabrielle tells Bree that Chuck brought them in for questioning and Bree snaps, causing her to head to a motel. When she arrives, she sits at a table in her room, pulls out a bottle of wine and a gun, and begins talking to the spirit of Mary Alice who has appeared sitting in front of her. Bree asks her if she is happy after having killed herself and Mary Alice replies, "I'm not unhappy". Bree is ready to kill herself when Renee kicks in the door, mistakenly believing Bree is with Ben. After yelling, threatening to hit her, and telling her she's "nothing more than a skank in a Nancy Reagan nightie", Renee notices the gun and the note. After reading it, she takes Bree home and stays there to make sure she's okay. When Renee says she won't let a friend die, Bree points out they're not quite friends, hurting Renee. She confesses to Bree how her own mother committed suicide and makes Bree see it's not the way out. Bree is happy at first, more so when she hears Chuck was killed in a hit-and-run. However, when she opens her mailbox, she finds a note saying "You're welcome."

Renee takes Bree to a bar, encouraging her to live a little, and Bree ends up going skinny dipping with a man she has just met in the pool of his opulent house, before the true owner of the house, his boss, catches them when he comes home. Bree is soon going to bed with a succession of men which gets the Reverend concerned about her behavior. Determined to show he's wrong, Bree participates in a bake sale where she meets one of her lovers, only to discover he's married. When Karen McCluskey says that they do not know what Bree is really like, Bree decides to live up to her reputation as the new town slut. Bree is soon bed hopping to the point that she hits on a man in a bar without remembering she had gone home with him just two nights previously. When they hear about Renee taking Bree to a bar, her friends try and stage an intervention, at which point Bree reaches her breaking point and blasts them for their less than friend-like behavior recently. At the bar, she's approached by a man and realizes how far she's fallen, ready to go home. The man follows her to the parking lot, threatening to assault Bree, only for them to be interrupted by a wheelchair-using Orson. He uses a taser to knock the man out, telling Bree her friends called him to help and if there's one thing they did well together, it was "cleaning up each other's messes". Orson soon convinces Bree that the girls are still angry at her and to go away with him for a weekend. What Bree doesn't know is that Orson has been stalking her for months, seeing the girls bury Alejandro's body, and he was the one leaving Bree the notes as part of his warped scheme to win her back. Bree soon discovers the truth while visiting Orson's apartment and despite his claims he did it all for her, she says she wants nothing to do with him. Orson calls her later, claiming that their love requires sacrifice, and Bree believes he's going to kill himself. Instead, Orson mails a folder of evidence against her to the police.

Bree is surprised when Andrew comes home, engaged to a woman named Mary Beth. Learning she's an heiress, Bree suspects Andrew is just marrying her for her money. Mary Beth tells Bree she knows Andrew is gay but is still willing to marry him as she's been unlucky in love. Bree convinces Mary Beth to find a man who truly loves her and she breaks up with Andrew. Andrew is upset at losing a chance at the money but Bree tells him he can stay with her and accept her help getting back on his feet.

Meanwhile, the police become suspicious of Bree and the murder of Gaby's stepfather and the help in its cover-up, so they tread carefully in trying to get proof that she is one of the suspects. They interview her, and she says that she had nothing to do with it. However, having been interrogated while drinking a cup of tea, her fingerprints are left on the mug. The fingerprint that the police found on the body and the fingerprint on Bree's cup match. The police go and talk to Ben, still about the murder of Alejandro. Ben keeps Bree's secret, and the police leave, with no more evidence than the fingerprint. But they do not stop there; a detective tracks down a call from Bree to Ben that night regarding Alejandro's murder, and they record it.

In order to defend herself, Bree asks Bob Hunter for legal advice, but he tells her she needs a criminal lawyer. He recommends lawyer Trip Weston, whom he calls a "shark". Bree goes to trial but does not tell Trip all the truth and is about to go to prison until Mrs. McCluskey confesses to the murder of Alejandro herself, after Bree and the girls agree to take care of her during her last days of life. Bree is acquitted of all charges. In the end, Bree marries Trip and moves to Louisville, Kentucky, where she joins a club for conservative women. Later, she is encouraged by Trip to run for the city council and the following November, she is elected to the Kentucky Legislature.

Reception

Critical
Bree has received wide acclaim, both for the character's storylines, and for Cross' portrayal. In a review of the pilot, Tim Goodman from the San Francisco Chronicle called Cross "almost too perfect as uptight Bree" and applauded her for "managing to give the character more shadings than merely insanely perfect".

At the commencement of the second season, Bree was widely considered the series' most prominent character, following the first year's emphasis on Susan Mayer. Though a drop in quality was noted in the second season, Bree's battles with alcohol, her teenage son, and her murderous pharmacist lover, while continuing to deal with the death of her husband, were well received and considered the focal point of the series in light of the lagging Applewhite mystery.

Cross retained her center-stage position for the show's third season, which widely focused upon the mystery surrounding her new husband Orson. Critics noted an improvement in quality from the second season to the third, and many deemed Bree's storyline to be the most satisfying of the season, as well as noting a "loss of steam" during Cross' maternity leave at the latter part of the season.

Season 4's "fake pregnancy" storyline continued to satisfy critics, with one calling it the series' most "hysterical [storyline] yet" and singling Cross out for praise. Her friction with Katherine Mayfair was also noted as a highlight. Following the five-year leap, a new direction was taken with Bree's character as she made the transition from housewife to author/businesswoman, a development which received positive reception.

This change in character development was continued into season 6, with another side to Bree's personality being shown, which includes an affair with Karl Mayer. Critics lauded the comic relief provided by these developments, as well as the more poignant and emotional turn mid-season as Bree deals with Orson's paralysis.

In Season 7, Bree finds herself newly divorced and embarks on a relationship with Keith Watson, a move which was praised for allowing "the for-so-long uptight Bree letting her hair down and having some fun for a change." By the climax of season 7, Bree is central in covering up the murder of Gabrielle's stepfather, a move which was praised as a sound set-up for the final season.

Awards
Marcia Cross has received widespread acclaim for her portrayal of Bree. For her work on the second season of the show, she garnered the Satellite Award for Best Actress - Television Series Musical or Comedy (her second nomination) and also received the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series twice as part of the cast (being nominated a further three times).

In 2005, Cross was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her performance in the season one episode, "Running to Stand Still". She also made the Top 10 Pre-Nomination Finalist listing for the same award three subsequent times, for her work on the second-season episode "Next", third-season episode "Listen to the Rain on the Roof", and fourth-season episode "Now You Know". She received three nominations at the Golden Globe Awards, for Best Actress in a Television Series - Musical or Comedy, for her work on the first three seasons of the show and also received three nominations at the Prism Awards (for Performance in a Comedy Series, in relation to Bree's alcoholism) and a nomination from the Television Critics Association for Individual Achievement in Comedy in 2005.

Cultural influences and impact
Bree is spoofed in MADtv Desperate Housewives parody, in which they mock the character's plastic exterior and demeanor. In a 2006 interview with Charmed Magazine, Michelle Stafford admitted that her character Mandi in Charmed episode "Desperate Housewitches" was almost entirely modeled after Marcia Cross as Bree. Looking at pictures and episodes of Bree to gain a sense of her posture and body language, she laughed, "I'm just mimicking her. I'm just ripping her off."

In 2007, Madame Alexander released a line of 16-inch fashion dolls of the series' main characters, including Bree.

Notes
Bree Van de Kamp's character is based on the creator Marc Cherry's mother. In fact, the whole Van de Kamp family is based on Marc's family.
Marc Cherry immediately knew Marcia Cross was Bree when she walked in for her audition.
Bree is the only main housewife who doesn't appear in every episode.
Bree has been accused of murder three times:
 first, with her husband Rex;
 then, with her ex-boyfriend Chuck Vance;
 and again, with Gaby's stepfather Alejandro.
Bree is the only housewife who remains financially stable throughout the entire series.
Bree was the first housewife to become a grandmother.
Bree has spearheaded the cover-up of a murder three times, in "Guilty", "Free", and "Come on Over for Dinner".
Bree is tied with Edie Britt in having the most husbands. Bree married Rex Van de Kamp, Orson Hodge, and Trip Weston while Edie married Charles McLain, Umberto Rothwell, and Dave Williams.
However, Susan Mayer married both of her husbands (Karl Mayer and Mike Delfino) twice, making her married the most times, that is, four times. Meanwhile, Gabrielle Solis married Carlos twice, making her married thrice as well (she married Victor Lang in Season 4).
Bree is the only main housewife not to be pregnant while on the show. Ironically, Cross is the only one of the four leading actresses to have gotten pregnant when the show was filming.
Bree and her ex-husband, Orson Hodge, have both been accused of killing their previous spouse.
Bree has been asked not to marry someone three times:
 first, to George Williams, by his ex-fiancé, Leila;
 second, to Orson Hodge, by his neighbor, Carolyn;
 and third, to Karl Mayer, by his ex-wife, Susan.
Bree and Katherine, often depicted as rivals, share many similarities beyond their excellent cooking:
 both have first husbands who are now dead along with second husbands who left them;
 both have daughters who have children of their own (however, in Katherine's cases, to her adopted daughter);
 both have been romantically involved with one of Susan's (ex-)husbands (Bree with Karl and Katherine with Mike);
 both have red hair (however, in Bree's case, it's unnatural);
 and both wed doctors.
Bree, Edie Britt, and Susan Mayer are the only three housewives who have slept with Karl Mayer.
Bree and Gabrielle Solis are the only housewives who have cheated on their husbands.

References

External links
Bree Van de Kamp at What's on TV

Television characters introduced in 2004
Desperate Housewives characters
Fictional Republicans (United States)
Fictional housewives
Fictional writers
Fictional chefs
Fictional attempted suicides

Bree Van de Kamp


Judy Chamberlain (born September 26, 1944 in New York City) is an American jazz singer, bandleader and journalist known for her extensive repertoire, estimated at four thousand songs from the Great American Songbook. The Los Angeles Times jazz critic Don Heckman has called Judy, "remarkably eclectic and versatile... always an intriguing interpreter of the standards" and has written that she is "almost guaranteed to know your favorite love song, no matter how obscure."

Chamberlain also wrote restaurant reviews, society and editorial columns for the Orange Coast Daily Pilot in Costa Mesa, reviewed restaurants for the Torrance, California Daily Breeze, the Los Angeles Times Calendar Live and Cox Interactive Media's LAInsider.com and hosted a restaurant interview show, Dining With Judy on K-OCEAN 103.1 FM (now KDLE) in Newport Beach, California and Savoire Fare on the Orange County Newschannel.

Notes

External links
Artist's personal website
[ Allmusic Biography]

American jazz singers
American bandleaders
American women journalists
1944 births
Living people
American restaurant critics
21st-century American women

Judy Chamberlain


Eliud Wambu Mathu (1 June 1910 – 26 May 1993) was a Kenyan teacher, politician and civil servant. He was the first African member of the Legislative Council of Kenya and served from 1944 to 1957.

Biography
Mathu was born in Karai to a Kikuyu family. He was educated at the Alliance High School and qualified as a teacher. In 1929 he became the first African master at Alliance. Between 1932 and 1934 he studied at Fort Hare College in South Africa and passed the South Africa matriculation. He returned to teach at Alliance and pursued a Bachelor of Arts degree through a correspondence course. In 1938 he moved to the United Kingdom to complete a one-year teaching diploma from Exeter University, and study history at Balliol College, Oxford. Mathu returned to Kenya in 1940, teaching at Alliance until he left in 1942 to open his own school in Waithaka.

In October 1944, Mathu was nominated to the Legislative Council of Kenya to represent the African community. He became the first African member of the Council. He co-founded the Kenya African Study Union to help co-ordinate and represent African interests in the Council. During the Mau Mau Uprising rival politicians from tribes deemed loyal to the government accused him of organising the Mau Mau. Despite remaining loyal himself, as a Kikuyu, he became disqualified from serving in the Council. At the 1957 election Mathu was replaced by Bernard Mate, a member of the Meru tribe who had the support of the government.

He died in Nairobi on 26 May 1993.

References

1910 births
1993 deaths
University of Fort Hare alumni
Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford
Alumni of Alliance High School (Kenya)
Members of the Legislative Council of Kenya
British Kenya people

Eliud Mathu


Otto the Mild (24 June 1292 – 30 August 1344), Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, ruled over the Brunswick part of the duchy.

Otto was the eldest son of Albert II, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. Otto and his brothers succeeded on their father's death in 1318; he served as his brothers' guardian while they were not of age. In 1323, he acquired the Altmark from Brandenburg as an inheritance of his wife's; but he sold it in 1343, when he failed to establish control there.

Otto died in 1344 in Göttingen and was succeeded by his brothers.

Family

Firstly, Otto married Jutta (died 1317), daughter of Henry I, Landgrave of Hesse. Secondly, he married Agnes (1297–1334), daughter of Herman, Margrave of Brandenburg-Salzwedel, in 1319. From the first marriage, he had one daughter: Agnes (died 1371).

References
 Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon, Appelhans 2006,

1292 births
1344 deaths
Dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg
Old House of Brunswick
Burials at Brunswick Cathedral

Otto the Mild


Syrian literature is literature originating from present-day Syria (officially the "Syrian Arabic Republic"), and which may be written in any of the languages of Syria. Syrian literature has been influenced by the country's political history and by Arabic and French literature.

From early times to 1948

Under Ottoman rule, literary production was subjected to censorship. In the second half of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth, aspiring Syrian writers often chose emigration, moving primarily to Egypt—where they contributed to al-Nahda, the renaissance of Arabic literature—and to the United States, developing Syrian literature from abroad.

From 1920 to 1946, while Syria was under French rule, French Romantic influences inspired Syrian authors, many of whom turned away from the traditional models of Arabic poetry.

From 1948 to the present day
In 1948, the partitioning of neighbouring Palestine and the establishment of Israel brought about a new turning point in Syrian writing. Adab al-Iltizam, the "literature of political commitment", deeply marked by social realism, mostly replaced the romantic trend of the previous decades. Hanna Mina, rejecting art for art's sake and confronting the social and political issues of his time, was one of the most prominent Syrian novelists of this era. Following the Six-Day War in 1967, Adab al-Naksa, the "literature of defeat", grappled with the causes of the Arab defeat.

Baath Party rule, since the 1966 coup, has brought about renewed censorship. As Hanadi Al-Samman puts it,
"In the face of threats of persecution or imprisonment, most of Syria's writers had to make a choice between living a life of artistic freedom in exile-as do Nizar Kabbani, Ghada al-Samman, Hamida Na'na', Salim Barakat, and prominent poet, critic, and novelist 'Ali Ahmad Sa'id (Adonis)-or resorting to subversive modes of expression that seemingly comply with the demands of the authoritarian police state while undermining and questioning the legitimacy of its rule through subtle literary techniques and new genres".

In this context, the genre of the historical novel, spearheaded by Nabil Sulayman, Fawwaz Haddad, Khyri al-Dhahabi and Nihad Siris, is sometimes used as a means of expressing dissent, critiquing the present through a depiction of the past. Syrian folk narrative is imbued with magical realism and is also used as a means of veiled criticism of the present. Salim Barakat, a Syrian émigré living in Sweden, is one of the leading figures of the genre.

Contemporary Syrian literature also encompasses science fiction and futuristic utopiae (Nuhad Sharif, Talib Umran), which may also serve as media of dissent.

US-American literary scholar of Syrian descent Mohja Kahf has argued that literary dissent is typically expressed through the "poetics of Syrian silence":
"The nostalgic, moist-eyed silences of Ulfat Idilbi's narrative could not be more different from the chilling, cynical silences in Zakaria Tamer's stories. The impassioned lacunae in Nizar Kabbani's proclaim exactly what it is they are not saying explicitly, while the poet Muhammad al-Maghut's silence is sardonic, sneering both at the authorities and at himself, at the futility and absurdity of the human situation under authoritarian rule".

See also
 Syrian writers
 Culture of Syria
 History of Syria
 Politics of Syria

References

External links
 Nihad Siris' Novel Ali Hassan's Intrigue

Syrian literature


Bereitschaftsleiter (Readiness Leader) was a Nazi Party political rank which existed between 1939 and 1945.  There were three levels of the rank, known as Bereitschaftsleiter, Oberbereitschaftsleiter, and Hauptbereitschaftsleiter.

The rank was created to replace the older rank of Stellenleiter, itself a replacement of the even old rank of Zellenwart.  Those holding the rank of Bereitschaftsleiter were most often assigned to the position of Zellenleiter on the local level of the Nazi Party.  In the higher Party levels (County, Region, and National), the rank of Bereitschaftsleiter was used as a low level staff or clerical position.

Insignia

References

Literature
 Clark, J. (2007). Uniforms of the NSDAP. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing

Nazi political ranks

Bereitschaftsleiter


Elegit (Latin for he has chosen) was, in English law, a judicial writ of execution, given by the Statute of Westminster II (1285), and so called from the words of the writ, that the plaintiff has chosen () this mode of satisfaction. Previously to the Statute of Westminster II, a judgment creditor could only have the profits of lands of a debtor in satisfaction of his judgment, but not the possession of the lands themselves. But this statute provided that henceforth it should be in the election of the party having recovered judgment to have a writ of fieri facias unto the sheriff on lands and goods or else all the chattels of the debtor and the one half of his lands until the judgment be satisfied. By the Bankruptcy Act 1883 the writ of elegit extended to lands and hereditaments only.

Writs of elegit were abolished on January 1, 1957, by the Administration of Justice Act 1956.

References

English legal terminology
Writs
Legal documents with Latin names

Elegit


The Nuer White Army, sometimes decapitalised as the "white army", is a semi-official name for a militant organisation formed by the Nuer people of central and eastern Greater Upper Nile in modern-day South Sudan as early as 1991. According to the Small Arms Survey, it arose from the 1991 schism within the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) for the dual purpose of defending Nuer cattle herds from neighbouring groups and fighting in the Second Sudanese Civil War between the SPLM/A and the Sudanese government.

While sometimes reported that the White Army was so named due to the Nuer practice of smearing one's skin with a light-coloured ash as a protection against biting insects, other sources contend the name was merely intended to draw a distinction between the Nuer militia and the Sudan Armed Forces, with the irregular "white" forces opposing the regular "black" forces, so called because white has a positive connotation and black a negative one.

History of activity

1990s
During the Second Sudanese Civil War, White Army fighters mainly from the Lou Nuer subtribe backed the breakaway SPLM/A faction known as SPLA-Nasir, in attacks on the Dinka. They were partly responsible for the Bor massacre, in which at least 2000 people were killed in 1991. However, the fighters never formed long-term alliances with other factions in the war, acting for short-term benefit only. Among their most regular enemies were the Murle people, a rival tribe competing for land and cattle in the states of Jonglei and Upper Nile.

During the war, though the term "White Army" could refer collectively to Nuer youth militants, there was rarely any functioning central authority for the disparate fighters, and a number of White Army factions based around different cattle camps operated autonomously or semi-autonomously of one another. The ranks of leadership had a reportedly high rate of turnover.

2000s
After the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005 between the government of Sudan and the SPLM/A, which formed the Autonomous Government of Southern Sudan, the Nuer White Army lost its remaining coherence. By February 2006, Nuer elders interviewed by Small Arms Survey workers acknowledged they had little or no control over the armed youths and said the incidence of cattle theft and other miscreant behavior on the youths' part was increasing. Riek Machar, the White Army's erstwhile wartime ally, announced the White Army would be disbanded amidst an SPLM/A disarmament campaign in the region. However, it was not until a major defeat in May 2006 near Motot, in Jonglei's Uror County, in which 113 White Army fighters were reportedly killed for the loss of a single Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) soldier, that the fighters gave up their attempts at resistance, according to the Small Arms Survey. The news service IRIN reported that more than 1,000 Lou Nuer men and boys in Akobo County who had been part of the White Army voluntarily surrendered their weapons to authorities in July 2006.

2010s
In late December 2011, several months after South Sudan gained its independence, The Upper Nile Times reported that the Nuer White Army had re-formed and had issued a threat on Christmas Day 2011 to "wipe out the entire Murle tribe on the face of the earth as the only solution to guarantee long-term security of Nuer's cattle". The statement also declared the White Army's intention to fight the SPLA and the United Nations, which has a peacekeeping mission in the country. The declaration marked an escalation in the ongoing clashes between the SPLA, the Murle, and the Lou Nuer in Jonglei and Upper Nile, which began when armed Murle fighters under the influence of George Athor's South Sudan Democratic Movement launched a cattle raid against the Lou Nuer in Jonglei state. UNMISS responded by deploying peacekeepers to Pibor town and urging both the Murle and Lou Nuer to lay down their arms.

References

1991 establishments in Sudan
Factions of the Second Sudanese Civil War
Factions of the South Sudanese Civil War
Rebel groups in South Sudan
Rebel groups in Sudan

Nuer White Army


Debe (or Débé) is a town in south Trinidad located in the region of Penal–Debe. Debe has grown from a small settlement into a key transit point which as has merged to some extent with Penal. A denomination high school was established by the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha (Parvati Girls College). Debe had initially gained importance as a train stop during sugar cane production. However with the closure of the sugar industry Debe continued to be widely known for doubles and other delicacies. The area has also gained prominence for its  wholesale marketing of agricultural produce in government managed Namdevco, which is the largest wholesale market in the country. Chutney music is believed to have originated in the Barrackpore-Debe-Penal area.

In 2013 the Sir Solomon Hochoy Highway extension to Debe was successfully opened to intersect with the SS Erin Main Road and the M2 Ring Road making the area a key transit point. In 2012 construction begun on the south campus of the University of the West Indies.

Debe is administered by the Penal–Debe Regional Corporation.

Gallery

Populated places in Trinidad and Tobago

Debe


An electronic keyboard, portable keyboard, or digital keyboard is an electronic musical instrument based on keyboard instruments. Electronic keyboards include synthesizers, digital pianos, stage pianos, electronic organs and digital audio workstations. In technical terms, an electronic keyboard is a synthesizer with a low-wattage power amplifier and small loudspeakers.

Electronic keyboards are capable of recreating a wide range of instrument sounds (piano, Hammond organ, pipe organ, violin, etc.) and synthesizer tones with less complex sound synthesis. Electronic keyboards are usually designed for home users, beginners and other non-professional users. They typically have unweighted keys. The least expensive models do not have velocity-sensitive keys, but mid- to high-priced models do. Home keyboards typically have little, if any, digital sound editing capacity. The user typically selects from a range of preset "voices" or sounds, which include imitations of many instruments and some electronic synthesizer sounds. Home keyboards have a much lower cost than professional synthesizers. Casio and Yamaha are among the leading manufacturers of home keyboards, having popularized the instrument's concept since the 1980s with the Casiotone and PortaSound, respectively.

Terminology

An electronic keyboard may also be called a digital keyboard, or home keyboard, the latter often refers to less advanced or inexpensive models intended for beginners. The obscure term "portable organ" was widely used in Asian countries to refer to electronic keyboards in the 1990s, due to the similar features between electronic keyboards and electronic home organs, the latter of which were popular in the late 20th century.

In Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, most types of electronic keyboards (including digital pianos and stage pianos) were simply often referred to as a "synthesizer" (Russian: синтезатор, sintezator), usually with no other term to distinguish them from actual digital synthesizers.

The term electronic keyboard may also be used to refer to a synthesizer or digital piano in colloquial usage

Components
The major components of a typical modern electronic keyboard are:
 Musical keyboard: The white and black piano-style keys which the player presses, thus connecting the switches, which trigger the electronic circuits to generate sound. Most keyboards use a keyboard matrix circuit to reduce the amount of wiring necessary. Electronic keyboards often use unweighted synthesizer-style keys to save costs and reduce the weight of the instrument. In contrast, stage piano and digital pianos typically have weighted or semi-weighted keys, which replicate the feel of an acoustic piano.
 User interface system: A program (usually embedded in a computer chip) which handles user interaction with controllers such as the musical keyboard, menus, and buttons. These controllers enable the user to select different instrument sounds (e.g., piano, guitar, strings, drum kit), digital effects (reverb, echo, chorus or sustain), and other features (e.g., transposition, accompaniments, sequencer, recording, external media, etc.). The user interface system usually includes an LCD screen that gives the user information about the synthesized sound they have selected like tempo, or  effects that are activated (e.g., reverb) and other features.
 Computerized musical arranger: A software program which produces rhythms and chords by the means of computerized commands, typically MIDI. Electronic hardware can also do this. Most computerized arrangers can play a selection of rhythms (e.g., rock, pop, jazz).
 Sound generator: A digital sound module, typically contained within an integrated Read-only memory (ROM), which is capable of accepting MIDI commands and producing electronic sounds. Electronic keyboards usually incorporate sample-based synthesis, but more advanced keyboards might sometimes feature physical modeling synthesis.
 Amplifier and speakers: an internal audio power amplifier, typically ranging from 5 to 20 watts, connected to the sound generator chip. The amplifier is then connected to small, low-powered speakers that reproduce the synthesized sounds so that the listener can hear them. Less expensive instruments may have a single mono speaker. Most models usually have two speakers producing stereo sound, often with tweeters for more advanced models.
 Power supply: Keyboards may or may not have an internal power supply system built to the main circuit board, but most modern keyboards are often equipped with an included AC adapter.
 MIDI terminals: Most keyboards usually incorporate 5-pin MIDI connections for data communication, typically so the keyboard can be connected with either a computer or another electronic musical instrument, such as a synthesizer, a drum machine or a sound module, allowing it to be used as a MIDI controller. Not all keyboards have conventional MIDI terminals and connector. The least expensive models may have no MIDI connections. Post-2000s keyboards may have a USB instead, which serve as both input and output in a single connection. since the 2010s, conventional MIDI in/out terminals are only available in professional-grade keyboards, stage pianos and high-end synthesizers, while low-cost home keyboards, digital pianos, and budget synthesizers use USB as the only connection available.
 Flash memory: Some electronic keyboards have a small amount of onboard memory for storing MIDI data and/or recorded songs.
 External storage device: Usually available on professional-grade keyboards and synthesizers, this allows the user to store data in externally connected storage media such as ROM cartridges, floppy disks, memory cards and USB flash drives. Floppy disks and cartridges were obsolete by the early 2000s, with memory cards starting to replace them shortly afterwards. USB storage was originally less common at the time, but was later popularized by Yamaha's lineup of workstation keyboards in 2005 and has become a standard feature ever since. Most keyboards since the 2010s use USB storage, with the exception of some Casio and Korg models.
 Music stand: A metal or plastic rack for holding sheet music or music books upright. The music stand is usually removable to facilitate storage and transportation.
 Sustain jack: If a home keyboard has a sustain feature, replicating the device used on acoustic pianos, only a 1/4" jack is provided. The musician must buy a separate sustain pedal and plug it in. By comparison, on a digital piano, a sustain pedal is often built into the frame. The least expensive home keyboards do not have a sustain function or a sustain pedal jack, which limits their use to early beginners.

History

Keyboard instruments trace back to the ancient hydraulis in the 3rd century BCE, later evolving into the pipe organ and smaller portative and positive organs. The clavichord and harpsichord emerged in the 14th century CE, Technological strides brought more advanced keyboards, including the modern 12-tone version. Initially, instruments like the pipe organ and harpsichord could only produce single-volume sounds. The 18th-century innovation of the pianoforte, with hammers striking metal strings via key pressure, enabled dynamic sound variation.

Electric keyboards began with applying electric sound technology. The first was the Denis d'or stringed instrument, made by Václav Prokop Diviš in 1748, with 700 electrified strings. In 1760, Jean Baptiste Thillaie de Laborde introduced the clavecin électrique, an electrically activated keyboard without sound creation. Elisha Gray invented the musical telegraph in 1874, producing sound through electromagnetic vibrations. Gray later added a single-note oscillator and a diaphragm-based loudspeaker for audibility.

In 1973, the Yamaha GX-1 introduced an early polyphonic synthesizer with eight voices. The EP-30 by Roland Corporation in 1974 became the first touch-sensitive keyboard. Roland also released early polyphonic string synthesizers, the RS-101 in 1975 and RS-202 in 1976.

In 1975, Moog's Polymoog merged a synthesizer with an organ, offering full polyphony through individual circuit boards. Crumar's "Multiman" organ with synthesizer arrived, and ARP Omni combined a synthesizer with a string machine and bass in 1976. Korg's PE-1000 that year featured a dedicated saw oscillator for each note.

In 1977, Yamaha CS-60 and CS-80 polyphonic synthesizers introduced 'memory'. In 1978, Oberheim's OB-1 brought electronic storage of sound settings. That year, Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 offered the feature in a five-voice polyphonic synthesizer. Fender's Rhodes Chroma, the first computer-controlled keyboard, resulted from ARP's engineers being acquired by Fender in 1979. Its successor, the Chroma Polaris, released in 1984, featured the 'Chroma' port.

Classifications
Conventional home keyboards differ from other electronic keyboards due to the design, features and target market:
 Digital piano - Electronic keyboards designed to sound and feel like an ordinary acoustic piano. They typically contain an amplifier and loudspeakers built into the instrument. In most cases they can fully replace acoustic pianos and provide several features, such as recording and saving files to a computer. Many digital pianos can imitate the sounds of several instruments, including a grand piano, electric piano, pipe organ, Hammond organ and harpsichord. They are not sensitive to the climate or humidity changes in a room and there is also no need for tuning, as with acoustic pianos. Digital pianos are often mounted on stands with a fixed sustain (or other) pedal attached to the frame; as such, most are not designed for transportation. The target market is mid-level to advanced pianists.
 Stage piano - A type of high-quality digital piano with weighted keys, designed for professional touring use on stage or in a recording studio. The Hammond organ and electric piano sounds on a stage piano are typically more realistic than those found on a digital piano.
 Synthesizer - Electronic keyboards that use various sound synthesis technologies to produce a wide variety of electronic sounds.
 Workstation - Professional electronic keyboards that combine the features of a synthesizer and a conventional home keyboard. Workstations have a range of high-quality sampled instrument sounds, as well as extensive editing/recording capability, computer connectivity, high-powered speakers, and often include external memory storage for storing customized data, MIDI sequences, and even additional instrument samples. A high-end workstation keyboard may include several features similar to a digital audio workstation computer software, allowing an even more advanced features such as mixing, mastering, sound design, creating loops and patterns, composing electronic music, etc.
 MIDI controller - An electronic keyboard that does not produce a sound of its own. It is used to trigger sounds from a sound module or software synthesizer by means of MIDI cable and connections. MIDI controllers often provide other sliders, knobs and buttons, which enable the player to control elements such as volume.
 Keytar - A small synthesizer that resembles a guitar which can be played in similar position as an electric guitar: worn on a strap over the shoulders, enabling the performer to move around on a stage. The name is a portmanteau of keyboard and guitar.

Compared to digital pianos or stage pianos, digital home keyboards are usually much lower in cost, as they have unweighted keys. Like digital pianos, they usually feature on-board amplifiers and loudspeakers. Stage pianos, however, typically do not have integrated amplifiers and speakers, as these instruments are normally plugged into a keyboard amplifier in a professional concert setting. Unlike synthesizers, the primary focus of home electronic keyboards is not on detailed control or creation of sound synthesis parameters. Most home electronic keyboards offer little or no control or editing of the sounds (although a selection of 128 or more preset sounds is typically provided).

Concepts and definitions

 Auto accompaniment / chord recognition: Auto accompaniment is used on programmed styles to trigger specific chords that will sound when a single key is pressed on the keyboard. For example, when the auto accompaniment feature is on, and the performer presses a "C" note in the low range of the keyboard, the auto accompaniment feature will play a C Major chord. In many keyboards, the auto accompaniment feature will play the automatic chords in a rhythm and style that is appropriate for the musical style (e.g., rock, pop, hip-hop) selected by the performer (see the Accompaniment backing track section for more). When the on-board rhythm track is turned on, the auto-chords will be played automatically in the tempo of the rhythm track. Many keyboards have an option to form on-bass chords, as well as many other complex chords.
 Demonstration: Most keyboards have pre-programmed demo songs. As the name "demo" implies, one usage of these pre-programmed songs is for a salesperson to use to demonstrate the capabilities of the keyboard, in terms of its different voices and effects. The demo songs can also be used for entertainment and learning. Some keyboards have a teaching feature that will indicate the notes to be played on the display and wait for the player to press the right one.
 Velocity sensitivity (also found under the keyword touch sensitivity in some manuals): While the least expensive keyboards are simply "on-off" switches, mid-range and higher-range instruments simulate the process of sound generation in chordophones (string instruments) which are sensitive to the speed (or "hardness") of a key press. Mid-range instruments may only have two or three levels of sensitivity (e.g., soft-medium-loud). More expensive models may have a broader range of sensitivity. For implementation, two sensors are installed for each key: the first sensor detects when a key is beginning to be pressed and the other triggers when the key is pressed completely. On some higher-end electronic keyboards or digital pianos, a third sensor is installed. This third sensor allows the player to strike a key and still sound a note even when the key has not yet come to its full resting position, allowing for faster (and more accurate) playing of repeated notes. The time between the two (or three) signals allows a keyboard to determine the velocity with which the key was struck. As the key weight is constant this velocity can be considered as the strength of the press. Based on this value the sound generator produces a correspondingly loud or soft sound. The least sophisticated types of touch sensitivity cause the keyboard to change the volume of the instrument voice. The most sophisticated, expensive types will trigger both a change in volume and a change in timbre, which simulates the way that very hard strikes of a piano or electric piano cause a difference in tone—as well as an increase in volume. Some sophisticated touch-sensitivity systems accomplish this by having several samples of an acoustic instrument note per key (e.g., a soft strike, a mid-level strike, and a hard strike). Alternatively, a similar effect can be accomplished using synthesis-modelling of the ADSR envelope or digital modelling (e.g., for the hard strike, the keyboard would add the timbres associated with a hard strike—in the case of a Fender Rhodes voice, this would be a biting, "bark" sound).
 After-touch: A feature brought in the late 1980s (although synthesizers like the CS-80 extensively used by artists like Vangelis featured after-touch as early as 1977) whereby dynamics are added after the key is hit, allowing the sound to be modulated in some way (such as fade away or return), based upon the amount of pressure applied to the keyboard.  For example, in some synth voices, if the key continues to be pressed hard after the initial note has been sounded, the keyboard will add an effect such as vibrato or sustain. After-touch is found on many mid-range and high-range synthesizers, and is an important modulation source on modern keyboards. After-touch is most prevalent in music of the mid to late 1980s, such as the opening string-pad on Cock Robin's When Your Heart Is Weak, which is only possible with the use of after-touch (or one hand on the volume control). After-touch is not normally found on inexpensive, beginner-level home keyboards.
 Polyphony: In digital music terminology, polyphony refers to the maximum number of notes that can be produced by the sound generator at once. Polyphony allows significantly smoother and more natural transitions between notes. Inexpensive toy electronic keyboards designed for children can usually only play five to ten notes at a time. Many low priced keyboards can perform 24 or 32 notes at a time. More advanced keyboards can perform over 48 notes at a time with 64 or 128 notes being common. Digital pianos, has more complex polyphonic system and could perform by up to 256 notes.
 Multi-timbre: The ability to play more than one kind of instrument sound at the same time, such as with the Roland MT-32's ability to play up to eight different instruments at once.
 Split point: The point on a keyboard where the choice of instrument can be split to allow two instruments to be played at once. In the late 1980s it was common to use a MIDI controller to control more than one keyboard from a single device. The MIDI controller had no sound of its own, but was designed for the sole purpose of allowing access to more sound controls for performance purposes. MIDI controllers allowed one to split the keyboard into two or more sections and assign each section to a MIDI channel, to send note data to an external keyboard. Many consumer keyboards offer at least one split to separate bass or auto-accompaniment chording instruments from the melody instrument.

 Minikeys: Most electronic keyboards have keys that are similar to the size of keys on an acoustic piano. Some electronic keyboards have minikeys, either because they are targeted at child users or to make the instrument smaller and more portable.
 Accompaniment backing tracks: Pre-programmed musical accompaniment tracks (also called rhythm pattern or rhythm style by some manufacturers), consist of a variety of genres for the player to use (e.g., pop, rock, jazz, country, reggae). The keyboard plays a chord voicing and rhythm which is appropriate for the selected genre. In general, programmed backing tracks usually imitate the sound of a rhythm section or an ensemble. Certain keyboards may include a feature that allows the performer to create, compose and customize their own accompaniments. This feature is usually called a pattern sequencer, rhythm composer, or a style creator.
 In addition to the basic accompaniment tracks, some keyboards have an extra feature to play different loops in conjunction with the backing track itself.
 Accompaniment sections and synchronization: Usually, backing tracks comprises two to four sections, as well as fill-in patterns, introduction/ending patterns, and various synchronizations to improve the effects of the accompaniment.
 Tempo: A parameter that determines the speed of rhythms, chords and other auto-generated content on electronic keyboards. The unit of this parameter is beats per minute. Many keyboards feature audio or visual metronomes (using graphics on a portion of the display) to help players keep time.
 Auto harmonization: A feature of some keyboards that automatically adds secondary tones to a note based upon chords given by the accompaniment system, to make harmony easier for players who lack the ability to make complex chord changes with their left hand.
 Wheels and knobs: Used to add effects to a sound that are not present by default, such as vibrato, panning, tremolo, pitch bending, and so on. A common wheel on contemporary keyboards is the pitch bend, adjusting the pitch of a note usually in the range of ±1 tone. The pitch bend wheel is usually on the left of the keyboard and is a spring-loaded potentiometer.
 Drawbars: Usually found only on high-end, expensive keyboards and workstations, this feature allows the performer to emulate digitally-modeled sounds of a tonewheel electronic organ (hence drawbar). It consists of nine editable virtual sliders that resemble the drawbars of a tonewheel organ, and features various effects such as rotary speaker, percussion, and tremolo. The setting can be saved to the keyboard's user memory or storage device.
 Piano simulation: A common feature of the digital piano, stage piano, and high-end workstations that allows real-time simulation of a sampled piano sound. It provides various piano-related effects, such as room reverberation, sympathetic resonance, piano lid position (as on a grand piano), and settings to adjust the tuning and overall sound quality.
 Keyboard action describes the mechanism and feel of the keyboard. Keyboards can be roughly divided into non-weighted and weighted.
 Non-weighted keyboards have a light, springy feel to their keys, similar to the action of an organ. The least expensive keyboards, often with non-full size keys, use keys that are mounted on soft rubber pads that also act as electronic switches. Most electronic keyboards use spring-loaded keys that make some kinds of playing techniques, such as backhanded sweeps, impossible, but make the keyboards lighter and easier to transport. Players accustomed to acoustic piano keys may find non-weighted spring-action keyboards uncomfortable and difficult to play effectively. Conversely, keyboard players accustomed to the non-weighted action may encounter difficulty and discomfort playing on an acoustic piano.
 Weighted keyboards indicate that some kind of effort has been made to give the keyboard more resistance and responsive feel similar to that of an acoustic piano.
 Semi-weighted keys is a term applied to keyboards with spring action like a non-weighted keyboard but that have extra weight added to the keys to give them more resistance and responsive feel.
 Hammer action keys use some kind of mechanism to replicate the action of a mechanical piano. This is often achieved with some kind of lever mechanism connected to the key.
 Graded hammer action keys do what hammer action keys do, but also has a different feel on the low versus high notes as on a mechanical piano keyboard. The lower note keys have a higher resistance than the higher note keys.

MIDI controls

MIDI, Musical Instrument Digital Interface, is a serial data connection which operates with any make or model of instrument which provides for it.

Electronic keyboards typically use MIDI signals to send and receive data, a standard format now universally used across most digital electronic musical instruments. On the simplest example of an electronic keyboard, MIDI messages would be sent when a note is pressed on the keyboard, and would determine which note is pressed and for how long. Additionally, most electronic keyboards now have a  "touch sensitivity", or "touch response" function which operates by an extra sensor in each key, which estimates the pressure of each note being pressed by the difference in time between when the key begins to be pressed and when it is pressed completely. The values calculated by these sensors are then converted into MIDI data which gives a velocity value for each note, which is usually directly proportional to amplitude of the note when played.

MIDI data can also be used to add digital effects to the sounds played, such as reverb, chorus, delay and tremolo. These effects are usually mapped to three of the 127 MIDI controls within the keyboard's infrastructure – one for reverb, one for chorus and one for other effects – and are generally configurable through the keyboard's graphical interface. Additionally, many keyboards have "auto-harmony" effects which will complement each note played with one or more notes of higher or lower pitch, to create an interval or chord.

DSP effects can also be controlled on the fly by physical controllers. Electronic keyboards often have two wheels on the left hand side, generally known as a pitch bend and a modulation wheel. The difference between these is that the pitch bend wheel always flicks back to its default position – the center – while the modulation wheel can be placed freely. By default, the pitch bend wheel controls the pitch of the note in small values, allowing the simulation of slides and other techniques which control the pitch more subtly. The modulation wheel is usually set to control a tremolo effect by default. However, on most electronic keyboards, the user will be able to map any MIDI control to these wheels. Professional MIDI controller keyboards often also have an array of knobs and sliders to modulate various MIDI controls, which are often used to control DSP effects.

Most electronic keyboards also have a socket at the back, into which a foot switch can be plugged. The most common function is to simulate the sustain on a piano by turning on and off the MIDI control which adds sustain to a note. However, since they are also simple MIDI devices, foot switches can usually be configured to turn on and off any MIDI controlled function, such as switching one of the DSP effects, or the auto-harmony.

Keyboard ensemble
In live performances, multiple electronic keyboards could be played together at one time, each by one musician, forming a keyboard ensemble. Keyboard ensembles are mostly performed within a band on an elaborate stage, while some can even serve as a simpler substitute to the more conventional orchestra, replacing stringed and wind instruments.

See also

 Synthesizer
 Digital piano
 Electronic organ
 MIDI controller
 Sound module
 Software synthesizer

References

Electric and electronic keyboard instruments
Keyboard instruments

Electronic keyboard


William Henry Peck (December 30, 1830 – February 4, 1892) was a writer from the Southern United States.

Biography
Peck was born in the Sand Hill section of Richmond County, Georgia, part of Augusta.  He was the son of Samuel Hopkins Peck, a merchant in Augusta, and his wife, the former Sarah Holmes Pate. Samuel Peck, later known as Colonel Peck due to his experience in the Mexican–American War, was descended from the Paul Peck family, one of the early settlers of Hartford, Connecticut.

In 1842, Florida's Congress passed the Armed Occupation Act which encouraged citizens to move and settle the relatively untamed areas of central Florida. Peck moved with his father and brothers in 1843 to the Indian River Colony in St. Lucie County in east Florida.  He later wrote descriptively about this area and his meeting with early pioneers such as lighthouse keeper Mills Burnham of Cape Canaveral in the Florida Star newspaper in 1887. In a piece for the New York Ledger, Peck also described the opening of the Indian River inlet with the picks and shovels that were available at that time.  The family is accredited with building the first frame house in the area and Peck's Lake is given to be named for them.

Peck received an extensive education at a boarding school in Connecticut, a military school in Georgetown, Kentucky and attended Harvard where he received a degree in 1853 and masters in 1855.  His writing career took off with submissions to Robert Bonner's New York Ledger where it was reported he was paid $5000 for stories for this publication. In 1873 The Augusta Chronicle reported:

William Peck earlier served as Professor of History at Tulane University of Louisiana and served as an educator for several institutions.  In 1861, he moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where he started The Georgia Weekly and divided his time between Atlanta and New York until he retired to the home of his youth in Jacksonville, Florida. He married Monica Kenny Blake on October 20, 1854, and was the father of seven children. With his family, he later moved to Merritt Island, Florida, where he owned many acres of citrus groves and started a post office. He was postmaster at the Courtenay Post Office which had a steamer called Courtenay. Peck's activities were often written about in the Florida Star newspaper. He later moved from Courtenay to close by Cocoa, Florida. His daughter Byrnnia Peck married Edward Postell Porcher in Charleston, South Carolina, on December 15. Another daughter, Daisy Peck, wrote for the Cocoa Tribune.

Peck died soon after his wife in 1892 in Jacksonville and is buried at Westview Cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia.

Bibliography
Peck published over seventy-five books, mostly novels. These books include:
 The M'Donalds; or, The ashes of southern homes. A tale of Sherman's march. This book was said to be loosely based on the experiences of his sister's family, the McDonalds from Augusta. (Written at the age of 37)
 The Confederate flag on the ocean. A tale of the cruises of the Sumter and Alabama
 The Stone-Cutter of Lisbon.
 Wild Redburn, an Indian Tale
 In May 1887, he wrote a story in the Florida Star about Gilbert's Bar. A very descriptive account of his teen years about the early pioneers of the Indian River area.
 Story in Florida Star dated July 17, 1889, records a social event at the home of W.H. Peck in Cocoa Florida. "Watching the Night Cereus bloom".
 Published The Fortune-teller of New Orleans.
 Published Siballa the sorceress; or, The Flower Girl of London.
 Published The Executioner of Venice, a novel.

Notes

References
 Living Writers of the South, pp 408–412 by James Wood Davidson - 1869 - 619 pages
 Reminiscences of Famous Georgians: Embracing episodes and Incidents, Page 507 by Lucian Lamar Knight - Georgia - 1908 - "Professor William Henry Peck wrote many stories for the weekly press but nothing better than "The Stone Cutter of Lisbon," for which it is said that the New York Ledger paid him five thousand dollars."

External links

 Historic Pictures of WH Peck

1830 births
1892 deaths
Florida pioneers
Harvard University alumni
Writers from Augusta, Georgia
People from Merritt Island, Florida
American male writers

William H. Peck


Lonny Price (born March 9, 1959) is an American director, actor, and writer, primarily in theatre. He is best known for his New York directing work, including Sunset Boulevard, Sweeney Todd, Company, and Sondheim! The Birthday Concert. As an actor, he is perhaps best known for his creation of the role of Charley Kringas in the Broadway musical Merrily We Roll Along, Neil Kellerman in Dirty Dancing, and Ronnie Crawford in The Muppets Take Manhattan.

Biography

Early life
Price was born in New York City, the son of Edie L. (Greene), a merchandise manager, and Murray A. Price, a car leasing company owner. Price grew up in Fresh Meadows, New York and Metuchen, New Jersey. He attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts, and the Juilliard School, which he only attended for a year in order to begin pursuing acting professionally.

Acting career

His early career was spent performing in Off-Broadway productions, including Class Enemy in 1979, for which he won a Theater World Award for outstanding stage debut.

His first major Broadway credit was the ill-fated Stephen Sondheim/Hal Prince/George Furth musical Merrily We Roll Along (1981), which underwent constant changes during an unusually long preview period and closed after only sixteen performances. His next show, the Athol Fugard play "Master Harold"...and the Boys - in which he portrayed a South African student opposite Danny Glover and Zakes Mokae as the family servants - ran for eight months.

Possibly his most significant Off-Broadway stage credit as an actor is the William Finn – James Lapine musical Falsettoland as Mendel in 1990.

Price's film and television credits include major supporting roles in The Muppets Take Manhattan and Dirty Dancing, and guest appearances on The Golden Girls and Law & Order, among others.

In 1989, he appeared as Jimmy Durante in the musical biography Durante.

Directing career
Price made his directorial debut with the Off-Broadway revival of The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N in 1989 for the American Jewish Theater, followed by The Rothschilds and Juno, both of which received Outer Critics Circle nominations for Best Revival.

Price served as Associate Artistic Director for the American Jewish Theatre from the late 1980s through the mid-1990s. He was artistic director at Musical Theatre Works, a non-profit theatre dedicated solely to the development of new musicals until 2002, when he became resident director.

He was a staff director for the ABC soap opera One Life to Live, for which he was part of a team that received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Drama Series Directing in 1995.

He has directed numerous musical productions, both concert and non-concert, with the New York Philharmonic, which include Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd with Patti LuPone and George Hearn in 2000, for which he won an Emmy Award, Leonard Bernstein's Candide (2004), with Kristin Chenoweth, Sir Thomas Allen, and Patti LuPone, Passion with Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald, which won an Emmy Award, and Camelot with Gabriel Byrne, Marin Mazzie, Christopher Lloyd, and Nathan Gunn, among other productions.

In 2000, Price co-wrote (with Linda Kline), directed, and starred in A Class Act, based on the life and career of composer-lyricist Edward Kleban, whose sole Broadway credit was A Chorus Line. The score consisted of songs Kleban had written for other shows that remained unproduced. After a two-month run at the Manhattan Theatre Club, it transferred to the Ambassador Theatre, where it fared less successfully and closed after three months. It earned Price his sole Tony Award nomination to date, for Best Book of a Musical. The show was also nominated for four other Tony Awards, including Best Musical.

In 2007, he directed a Broadway revival of 110 in the Shade at the Roundabout Theatre Company, starring Audra McDonald. The play was nominated for the 2007 Tony Award, Best Revival of a Musical (among others).

In March 2010, he conceived and directed Sondheim! The Birthday Concert at the New York Philharmonic, celebrating the composer-lyricist's 80th Birthday. The PBS television broadcast was nominated for several Emmy Awards, and Price won for "Outstanding Directing For A Variety, Music Or Comedy Special."

In April 2011 he directed an acclaimed concert production of Sondheim's Company with Neil Patrick Harris, Stephen Colbert, Martha Plimpton, Christina Hendricks, and Patti LuPone, backed by the New York Philharmonic.

In 2013, he again directed Sweeney Todd at the New York Philharmonic, this time starring Emma Thompson and Bryn Terfel. The PBS telecast for Live from Lincoln Center won the Emmy Award for "Outstanding Variety, Music, Or Comedy Special."

He has directed numerous productions at the Chicago Ravinia Festival, including Sweeney Todd, Gypsy, Sunday in the Park With George, Anyone Can Whistle, Passion, and Annie Get Your Gun. Frequent collaborators for his productions include performers Patti LuPone, Audra McDonald, Michael Cerveris, and George Hearn, and musical director and conductor Paul Gemignani.

He directed the 2014 Broadway production of Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill starring McDonald, who won her historic sixth Tony Award for her performance as Billie Holiday. He would subsequently stage the production in 2017 on the West End in London, again starring McDonald, as well as the HBO special. In 2016, he directed the acclaimed London revival of Sunset Boulevard starring Glenn Close, which transferred to Broadway and played a limited run in 2017.

In 2016, Price directed the documentary Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened, which chronicles the ill-fated journey of Stephen Sondheim and Harold Prince's original 1981 Broadway musical Merrily We Roll Along. It played the New York Film Festival, and was named one of the New York Times Top Ten Films of 2016.

His episodic television directing work includes five episodes of Desperate Housewives and three episodes of 2 Broke Girls.

In 2019, Price directed the Roundabout Theatre Company premiere of the musical Scotland, PA.

Price is a guest instructor at HB HB Studio.

Credits

Broadway

Off-Broadway

Film

Television

Awards and nominations

References

External links

American male musical theatre actors
American male film actors
American male television actors
American theatre directors
American musical theatre librettists
20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
People from Metuchen, New Jersey
Singers from New York City
1959 births
Living people
Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School alumni
Primetime Emmy Award winners

Lonny Price


Brian Roy Stuckenberg (7 April 1930 – 8 February 2009) was a South African entomologist who specialised in Diptera.

Stuckenberg was of Danish descent, his great uncle was the poet Viggo Stuckenberg. Stuckenberg was head of Entomology at the Natal Museum (now KwaZulu-Natal museum) in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. He became Africa's leading dipterist, building one of the largest collections of Afrotropical flies in the world. He wrote over 100 publications., including the sections on the families Blephariceridae, Thaumaleidae, Xylomyidae, Rhagionidae, Athericidae, Apioceridae and Opomyzidae in Crosskey, R.W., ed., Catalogue of the Diptera of the Afrotropical Region. London: British Museum (Natural History), p. 635 and worked on Vermileonidae.

He collected Diptera in South Africa, Angola, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Chile and Argentina. Stuckenberg was a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society of London.

References

External links
KwaZulu-Natal Museum

South African entomologists
Dipterists
2009 deaths
1930 births
20th-century South African zoologists

Brian Roy Stuckenberg


I.Sat (contraction of the Spanish phrase Imagen Satelital, which means "Satellite image") is an Argentine cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery International. It airs movies, series, music, and shows. It is headquartered in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

It is broadcast on the satellite Intelsat 21 and is carried by most cable television companies in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

Recent history
Until 2007, the channel was owned by "Claxson Interactive Group Latin America & Iberia" (which was a subsidiary of the Venezuelan-based Grupo Cisneros) but that year the channel, along with Retro and Space, is bought by Turner Broadcasting System. It aired different programming on different blocks, such as "Primer Plano I.Sat" (foreign movies), "Cine Argentino Independiente" (independent Argentine films), "Asian Connection" (Asian films), and "Cortos I-Sat" (short films).

In 2007 it changed its programming from being a 24-hour movie channel to having movies, series, shows, documentary series, music, and some others. Some current programming includes Little Britain, Raising Hope, Misfits, and others.

Adult Swim, which previously aired on Cartoon Network, aired every night with adult animation series since 2007 after its cancellation from Cartoon Network; however, the Adult Swim block was cancelled from I.Sat on 2010 due to low ratings. Adult Swim, however, returned to I.Sat on April 3, 2015 until April 16, 2020.

Logos

Programming

Current programming blocks
Cine Argentino Independiente: Argentine independent films.
Cortos I.Sat: Short films.
Cuentos de terror. Horror stories narrated by Alberto Laiseca.
I.Films: Featured movies with monthly premieres.
I.Series: Series, shows, and reality series.
Primer Plano I-Sat: International Independent films.

Former programming blocks
Adult Swim: Previously aired on Cartoon Network.  It aired cartoons and anime series for adults since 2007. Discontinued in 2010. Returned in April 2015 until April 2020.
Asian Connection: Asian films.
BritTV: British shows and series from BBC and Channel 4.
Comedy Central. Programming block with series from the TV channel Comedy Central. Discontinued in 2004.
Cine Zeta. Films with poor ratings or reviews. Discontinued in 2005.
Furia Oriental: Anime series and Asian films.
Sexorama. Softcore films. Discontinued in 2008.
I-Toons. Airs cartoons. Discontinued in 2010.

Foreign programming
Adventure Time (Lasted only two hours in the special "Happy birthday Cartoon Network" on April 21, 2013)
Alice
Angel
Arrested Development
As If
Bewitched
Black Mirror
The Brady Bunch
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Californication
Carnivàle
Cha Cha Cha
Come Fly with Me
Cock'd Gunns
Dharma and Greg
Diff'rent Strokes
Episodes
Extras
The Facts of Life
Gimme a Break!
Happy Days
I Dream of Jeannie
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Little Britain
Loaded
Laverne & Shirley
MADtv
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Peep Show
Pippalotta's Home
Raising Hope
Regular Show (I.Sat aired the episode "The Graveyard" uncensored on November 22, 2013, in its special "Ani-Mes" in "Cortos I.Sat")
Rosie
Rubicon
Running Wilde
Secret Diary of a Call Girl
Shameless
Shameless (U.S. version)
Six Feet Under
Sound
Sugar Rush
The Basement Sessions
The Borgias
The IT Crowd
The Mighty Boosh
The Mind of the Married Man
The Office
The Whitest Kids U' Know
Trigger Happy TV
Trust Me
Veronica Mars

External links
Official YouTube Channel

References

Latin American cable television networks
Portuguese-language television stations in Brazil
Spanish-language television stations
Television channels and stations established in 1993
Television in Argentina
Television stations in Argentina
Warner Bros. Discovery Americas
Warner Bros. Discovery networks

I.Sat