Dear Theo: The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh | Arts + Literature Laboratory | Madison Contemporary Arts Center

Dear Theo: The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh

Fermat's Last Theater Co. presents Dear Theo: The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh at Arts + Literature Laboratory on Thursday, April 13 at 7:30pm. Free Admission. 

No artist is held in higher esteem than Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh. His paintings appear not only on museum walls, but on tee shirts, coffee mugs and posters around the world. But to know the paintings and drawings is to know only one aspect of his genius. He wrote an estimated 2000 letters in his short life, more than 600 to his brother Theo, an art dealer in Paris, who often supported Vincent financially, and carefully preserved their correspondence. Many of them contained sketches as well. The letters document Vincent’s turbulent emotional life, his wide and deep reading, his artistic development. And his belief, despite a lack of commercial success, that he was in fact a great artist.

“You know the fireflies in Brazil that are so luminous that in the evening ladies stick them into their hair with pins. It’s very fine, fame, but see, it is to the artist what the hairpin is to those insects.” --Vincent Van Gogh, Arles, 1888

Melvin Hinton will read the from the letters, Maggie Schenk will narrate, with violin music from Diana Wheeler and many, many images.

Fermat's Last Theater

The name for Fermat’s Last Theater came about because one member of the company, upon re-reading The Merchant of Venice, had an idea for a production, but as with the 17th century mathematician, his conception was too large to include all the details in the margin of the of text.

We are a political theater—we stage works that explore issues of class, race and gender. Founded as a Shakespeare company in 2013, we have in recent years been exploring the genre of documentary theater—theater about real people, events and social movements. 

We are a free theater. You will never be asked to buy a ticket to gain admittance to any of our work. We believe that being a political theater is inextricably linked with being a free theater. We pay our performers, and rely on a network of individual donors and city, state and national granting agencies to fund our shows. At the end of each performance, we do ask for free will donations for those able to contribute. 

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Arts + Literature Laboratory is located at 111 S. Livingston Street #100, Madison, Wisconsin, 53703.

Our galleries are open Tuesday through Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday noon to 5pm, and other programs take place throughout the week. Please check the events calendar and education section for details.

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