Kate Chopin's stories and novels have inspired artists working in all sorts of media. Scroll down for information about films, dance and theatre productions, operas, a graphic short story. . . . You can contact us for more information.

KBIA, a radio station in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, posted this announcement in October, 2011:

"The history of St. Louis’s Central West End is steeped in literature. The area is tied to four of America’s most famous writers: T. S. Eliot, Tennessee Williams, Kate Chopin and William S. Burroughs. But until recently, the neighborhood had no official tributes to the literary greats. As part of Word Missouri, an ongoing series about Missouri’s literary heritage, KBIA’s Davis Dunavin looks at one neighborhood group’s efforts to change that."

The posting is no longer available online, but it detailed plans to unveil a bust of Kate Chopin in 2012 on her birthday, February 8.

A new article about the bust, including preliminary photos, was published by the St. Louis West End Word on January 20, 2012.

Reuters and other media outlets are reporting that Audible.com has hired actors to produce "tour de force performances" of new audiobooks. The lineup includes Anne Hathaway reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, Colin Firth reading The End of the Affair by Graham Greene, Kate Winslet reading Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola, Nicole Kidman reading To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, and Kim Basinger reading The Awakening by Kate Chopin. The initial list of readings is now available.

New York area residents and visitors attended a reading of a new screenplay based on Kate Chopin's The Awakening. The screenplay was written by Jim Sherry, the production directed by Joyce Wu.

Photo: "Girl at Sunrise." Copyright Steve Puntolillo, 2011

The reading was held on June 12th, 2011, at TheaterLab, 137 W. 14th Street New York, NY 10011.

Selected video clips along with excerpts from the printed screenplay are available from Jim Sherry.

New York filmmaker Amanda Lin Costa has written, directed, and produced a contemporary film adaptation of Kate Chopin's short story "Her Letters."

The executive producer of the film, Karla S. Bryant, tells us:

"I leave this package to the care of my husband. With perfect faith in his loyalty and his love, I ask him to destroy it unopened.

"These two lines, written over a century ago by Kate Chopin, were the catalyst for Amanda Lin Costa's vision for a short film. Remaining faithful to the story, the contemporary setting emphasizes the timeless qualities of the themes of love, doubt, suspicion, and despair. In keeping with Kate Chopin's astute eye for subtle detail, the film is rich in visuals and moments which capture a multitude of emotions."

More information can be found on the film's website.

"Once the post-production work is finished on the film," Ms. Bryant adds, "our plan is to enter it in several quality film festivals and explore future distribution venues. A percentage of funds raised will support New York Women in Film and Television. We believe this is a strong project which highlights the uncompromising creativity of Kate Chopin, presented as a film to a wider audience."

We will update this announcement when the film is released. Our thanks to Karla Bryant for the film stills.

Today Kate Chopin is best known for her sensitive treatment of women's lives. But in the 1890s she was praised mostly for her "local color," her pictures of Louisiana Creoles and Acadians. Some of her regionalist reputation survives and is evident in a recent article in The Oxford American: The Southern Magazine of Good Writing. The article describes a poll of 134 writers and scholars asked to name "The Best Southern Novels of All Time." Kate Chopin's The Awakening came in 17th in the poll. Absalom, Absalom, by William Faulkner, was ranked first.

The June 13, 2010, episode of Treme, an American television drama series set in New Orleans a few months after the 2005 hurricane, is built around a reference to Kate Chopin's The Awakening.

The episode is focused on a character named Creighton Bernette, a university professor. James Poniewozik writes about the episode and its relationship to Chopin's novel in a Time magazine blog. Treme was created by David Simon and Eric Overmyer and runs for ten episodes on HBO. The word Treme is pronounced tre-MAY. It's the name of a neighborhood next to the French Quarter.

The episode is available on DVD.

In 1991, Mary Lambert directed the made-for-cable version of The Awakening, called Grand Isle, with Kelly McGillis playing Edna Pontellier. The film is available on VHS, but not, apparently, on DVD:

Also, earlier, in 1982, director Bob Graham did a feature-length version of the novel called The End of August. It's apparently no longer easily available, but you may be able to find a VHS copy:

There is, in addition, what many critics consider a fine novel by Robert Stone called Children of Light, about a production company making a film of The Awakening using a performer struggling with some of the same issues that Edna struggles with.

The Vaughn Dance Company in Los Angeles premiered on November 7, 2008, an original modern dance production, Reaching Out for the Unlimited, based on Kate Chopin's novel The Awakening. It featured the music of Grammy-winning composer/guitarist Andrew York.

According to the announcement, "Vaughn Dance Company's adaptation of The Awakening traces the heroine's emotional journey, exploring her relationships with friends, lovers, and the sea. Andrew York's music brings alive the emotional arc of this story with a score that includes new, unpublished pieces and a live performance by York. Making its mark with sensual shapes and undulating movement, Jennifer Vaughn's choreography is a palpable embodiment of music that captivates broader audiences and dance aficionados alike."

Jennifer Vaughn told us in an email message that her production "traces Edna's emotional journey, focusing on her complex relationships—with friends, lovers, and with the sea. The company's ten members embody these roles, including different 'Ednas' who change as she discovers new parts of herself. The dancers also become the beckoning sea, the entity which both cradles and emboldens Edna but also sweeps her away."

She continued, "I chose very simple staging and costuming—very plain and timeless. And for logistical reasons, we chose not to address Edna's relationship with her children. I believe that audience members who know the story will recognize much of it, but I've tried to design the production in such a way that those who do not know the story will still be able to get something out of it."

A new production of The Awakening was presented by Savage Umbrella and 3AM Productions at Gremlin Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota, from April 2 to 17, 2010. The script is by Laura Leffler-McCabe, who also directed. The production includes music composed by Candy Bilyk and performed by a trio of instrumentalists, with singing by the cast.

From the announcement for the production:

"'The book is beautiful,' Leffler-McCabe says when asked why she decided to take on the project as writer and director. 'It's this proto-modernist text full of slice-of-life details and conversations, along with these really lyrical expressive passages of a character in turmoil.'

"The show, which boasts a cast of more than a dozen, was company-created, and incorporates music and movement to do justice to a story that begins in a woman's heart, then radiates with seismic repercussions into the world around her.

"'We started workshopping with the cast back in September,' says Leffler-McCabe. 'We cussed a lot, fought some, danced, experimented, and honed in on something that gets to the heart of what Chopin was trying to do.'"

You can read the promo, you can see a video blog with rehearsal footage, you can read a review from a local paper, or you can see production photos like this one:

Laura Leffler-McCabe also sent us a performance excerpt. "We put this together for a grant we're applying for," she says, "so it's short and of a sort of strange moment, but it hopefully gives an idea of the style of the production."

Cartoonist Gabrielle Bell's newest book is called Cecil and Jordan in New York (Drawn and Quarterly, 2009). It's a collection of short works.

Here is the first page of a story called "One Afternoon":

The New York Times says Cecil and Jordan in New York "is narrated by a young woman who's just moved to the city with her filmmaker boyfriend; it's a clear-cut tale of impecunious 20-something artists until halfway through, when the narrator abruptly transforms herself into a chair, gets taken home by someone who finds her on the sidewalk and decides that her old life won’t miss her. The engine of these mercilessly observed stories is squirminess: emotional awkwardness so intense that it can erupt into magic or just knot itself into scars."

If you're not yet fluent in English, you can hear a version of Chopin's "A Pair of Silk Stockings" read in "Special English," used by the Voice of America to "communicate by radio in clear and simple English with people whose native language is not English."

You can also hear a version of Chopin's "Athénaïse" read in "Special English."

You can read questions and answers about Kate Chopin and her work, and you can email us your questions.

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