At the American Museum 
The Once and Future Museum 
The American Museum of Natural 
History is a tangled complex of twen- 
ty-two interconnected buildings 
stretching from 77th to 81st Street 
on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. 
According to the Guinness Book of 
World Records , it is the largest mu- 
seum of any kind in the world. The 
Museum has more than 99,000 square 
feet of windows, nearly 300,000 square 
feet of glass in exhibit cases, 17 ele- 
vators, 35,000 electrical outlets, 800 
air conditioners and 25 acres of floor 
space; employs 200 scientists, working 
in as many offices, and 600 other em- 
ployees; and stores 34,000,000 speci- 
mens in an undetermined number of 
rooms. 
Anyone who visits the Museum 
must be impressed by the windings 
and convolutions of its thirty-eight ex- 
hibition halls. Those of us who work 
here know of the Museum’s subter- 
ranean passageways lined with rum- 
bling steam pipes, of its dark attics 
stuffed with relics and bones, and of 
its storage rooms containing all man- 
ner of natural history artifacts, from 
whale skeletons and dinosaur skulls 
to pre-Columbian jades and mummies. 
The growth of the Museum’s build- 
ing has followed, somewhat fitfully 
and erratically, a master plan created 
more than a century ago. The Museum 
was founded in 1869, and for lack 
of a better space the first collections 
were housed in the offices of Brown 
Brothers, a Wall Street firm. The 
growing collections were later moved 
Shakespeare Summerfest 
A wide variety of programs, including 
talks, films, and performances related 
to the Elizabethan era, is planned in 
conjunction with the new major exhi- 
bition at the Museum, Shakespeare: 
The Globe and the World. For more 
information on programs listed below, 
contact Marilyn Roberts at the Edu- 
cation Department, American Museum 
of Natural History, Central Park West 
at 79th Street, New York, N.Y. 10024, 
or call the Museum at (212) 873-1300. 
The Lover and His Lass 
On Wednesday, July 15, at 7:00 P.M. 
in the Education Hall, a program of 
poetry and dance will re-create the am- 
biance of a candlelit dancing party in 
a sixteenth-century manor house. The 
Lover and His Lass: Dances from 
Shakespeare’s Time , choreographed by 
Bhala Jones using sixteenth-century 
dance forms, is presented by the Ananda 
Dancers. 
Dances for a Winter’s Night 
This program of dance includes se- 
lected sixteenth-century dances con- 
nected by quotations from dance man- 
uals of the period. The narrative reveals 
the manners, morals, and often humor- 
ous insights of Renaissance life. Dances 
for a Winter’s Night will take place 
on Tuesday July 21, at 7:00 P.M. in 
the People Center, and is presented by 
Bhala Jones and the Ananda Dancers. 
The Book in Shakespeare’s Age 
Daniel Traister, of the New York Pub- 
lic Library’s Department of Rare Books 
and Manuscripts, will give a talk, The 
Book in Shakespeare's Age, on Wednes- 
day, July 29, at 7:00 P.M. in the People 
Center. 
The New Jersey Shakespeare Festival 
Events, Drew University, Madison, New 
Jersey 
Lecture Demonstration in Potter’s 
Field Acting Technique with Michael 
Moriarty and members of the Potter’s 
Field Theatre Company. Saturday, June 
27, at 3:00 P.M. 
Violence in Shakespeare, a talk with 
Paul Berry, artistic director, and mem- 
bers of the New Jersey Shakespeare Fes- 
tival Company. Saturday, July 11, at 
3:00 P.M. 
Dressing Shakespeare, with Nancy 
Potts, designer, Eaves Costume Collec- 
tion. Saturday, July 25, at 3:00 P.M. 
American Shakespeare Theatre Events, 
Stratford, Connecticut 
Shakespeare’s Histories, a talk by 
Charles A. Hallett, professor of English 
at Fordham University. Wednesday, 
July 8, at 4:30 P.M. 
Shakespeare: The Literate Actor, a 
talk by Bernard Beckerman, professor 
of dramatic literature, Columbia Uni- 
versity. Wednesday, July 15, at 4:30 
P.M. 
Other Shakespeare Summerfest Events 
The American Shakespeare Theatre 
in Stratford, Connecticut, will present 
Henry V, starring Christopher Plummer, 
and Othello, starring James Earl Jones, 
from July 7 to September 6. 
The New Jersey Shakespeare Festival 
in Madison, New Jersey, is offering a 
rotating repertory season, from June 23 
to September 6, including Romeo and 
Juliet and Cymbeline. 
The New York Renaissance Festival 
of the Arts will re-create the atmosphere 
of a Renaissance fair during the seven 
weekends from August 1 to September 
13 and Labor Day. 
The New York Shakespeare Festival 
will present The Tempest from June 
26 to July 26 and Henry IV, Part 1 
from July 31 to August 30. Perform- 
ances will be given Tuesday through 
Sunday at the Delacorte Theater in Cen- 
tral Park. 
WNET/Thirteen will rebroadcast pro- 
ductions from the BBC/Time-Life series 
“The Shakespeare Plays.” 
The Chautauqua Institution of Chau- 
tauqua, New York, is sponsoring a one- 
week program on Shakespeare in July. 
The featured speaker is Sam Schoen- 
baum, author of Shakespeare: The 
Globe and the World, the catalog pub- 
lished in conjunction with the Folger 
Shakespeare Library exhibition. 
The Yale Center for British Art is 
exhibiting Yale University’s extensive 
holdings of Shakespearean art through 
July 5. The university is also offering 
a free series of Shakespearean films 
through August 15. 
Bedouin Tent 
A collection of Saudi Arabian arti- 
facts is on display in the Roosevelt Ro- 
tunda. The focus of the exhibit is a 
Bedouin tent featuring objects of these 
nomadic people. The exhibit will also 
trace Arabian cultural development, 
from Paleolithic times to the present, 
through flint tools and points, pottery, 
and historical photographs. 
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