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The First Annual Algonquin West Hollywood Awards, a first-of-its-kind literary award ceremony, will take place at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood on Saturday evening, September 29, 2007 at 7 p.m. Admission is $20 per person and proceeds will benefit PEN in the Classroom, a writing program that focuses on underserved high school students in Southern California. In addition to the presentation of the award, a performance piece depicting the Algonquin Round Table will be performed. The purpose of the Algonquin West Hollywood Award is to connect the past and present by linking masterful literary voices from different generations. Dorothy Parker, a literary icon, was the mastermind and most famous member of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of writers, critics, actors and literary intellectuals who met for lunch every day at a round table at New York’s Algonquin Hotel from 1919 to 1929. Epitomizing the spirit of American creativity, this celebrated group of intellectual literary giants met ritualistically, sharing lunch, humor, cocktails and political banter. “I am pleased that the legacy of Dorothy Parker will be honored at the City of West Hollywood’s First Annual Algonquin Awards,” said Councilmember John Heilman. In addition to writing numerous short stories, poems and book reviews, Dorothy Parker staked a claim in Hollywood as a screenwriter for 15 films; most notably she wrote the classic Judy Garland movie, “A Star is Born.” Forty years after her death in 1967, the West Hollywood Book Fair will celebrate Dorothy Parker and her literary tribe with an inaugural presentation of the Algonquin West Hollywood Award. The Award will honor an innovative writer who, like Dorothy Parker, has made significant contributions to the world’s literary landscape. Mark Salzman is the recipient of the 2007 West Hollywood Algonquin Award and an award-winning novelist and nonfiction author who has written on a variety of subjects. As a boy, Salzman proficiency on the cello facilitated his acceptance to Yale at the age of 16. He soon changed his major to Chinese language and philosophy, which took him to mainland China where he taught English for two years and studied martial arts, material for which later became Iron & Silk, his post-college memoir. Salzman’s cello playing appears on the soundtrack to several films, including the Academy Award-winning documentary Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O’Brien. He has also played with Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Emanuel Ax at Lincoln Center. “Like Ms. Parker, Mark Salzman, recipient of the 2007 West Hollywood Algonquin Literary Award, is a wonderful example of a writer who has made a significant impact on his generation and the world of literature,” Heilman continued. In addition to the presentation of the award, a performance piece of Gertrude Stein’s “Miss Furr and Miss Skeene” and a staged reading, “Celebrating Dorothy and Her Friends,” created by local theatre artist Michael Kearns depicting the Algonquin Round Table in its glory days will feature a host of celebrities portraying Parker and her cronies including Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott, Harpo Marx, Tallulah Bankhead, George S. Kaufman, Marc Connelly, Edna Ferber and Robert Sherwood with actors Bruce Davison, Mary Jo Catlett, John Glover, Martin Landau, Tonya Pinkins, Gordon Thomson and Tony Tripoli with Wayne Moore on piano scheduled to perform. Readings from their works will be brought to life on a set that will recreate the famous round table gatherings.
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