About this Event
The Drama Book Shop presents, in association with Jay Michaels Global Communications, “A Celebration of Zelda Fichandler” - A talkback, signing of “The Long Revolution: Sixty Years on the Frontlines of a New American Theater” and "To Repair the World: Zelda Fichlandler and the Transformation of American Theater", and a live podcast recording.
About the books:
The Long Revolution: Sixty Years on the Frontlines of a New American Theater gathers sixty years of essays, speeches, and manifestos by the founding mother of the resident professional theatre movement. As a founder and artistic director of the flagship Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., and chair of New York University’s Graduate Acting program, the late Zelda Fichandler changed the where and how of the American theatre. The Long Revolution gathers Fichandler’s most prescient writing about that movement, ranging over such topics as The Institution as Art-Work, the Profit in NonProfit, Race and a Deepening Aesthetic, and Creativity and the Public Mind. It also includes intimate portraits of artists with whom she frequently collaborated and director’s notes from the major productions that defined her vision. Celebrated as the defining architect and builder of the most sweeping transformation of twentieth-century American theatre, her brilliant writing reestablishes Fichandler as one of its most expansive and provocative thinkers.
To Repair the World: Zelda Fichandler and the Transformation of American Theater by Mary B. Robinson (with a foreword by Jane Alexander) is a biography in the form of an oral history about the woman whose founding of Arena Stage in Washington, DC in 1950 shifted live professional theater away from Broadway and inspired the creation of non-profit theaters around the country. Dianne Wiest, James Earl Jones, Stacy Keach, and Jane Alexander, among many others, share their memories of this intrepid pioneering woman during Arena Stage’s early years. Marcia Gay Harden, Rainn Wilson, Mahershala Ali, and other alums of New York University’s Graduate Acting Program talk about how they became “citizen-artists” under her guidance. In all, the book combines the voices of 174 people with generous samplings of Fichandler’s own voice, through excerpts from her voluminous correspondence and interviews.
About the Authors:
Zelda Fichandler was a seminal figure in the regional theater movement, and led Arena Stage in Washington, DC, for forty-one years, producing more than four hundred shows and directing more than fifty for a company that helped spur the growth of professional theater around the country. She spent another twenty-five years training hundreds of actors as chair of NYU’s Graduate Acting Program. She was a titan in the theater world, a visionary producer and teacher who was instrumental in seeding the American continent with the work of playwrights, directors, actors, and designers.
Todd London has been a leading figure in the U.S. nonprofit theater for more than thirty-five years. The first recipient of TCG’s Visionary Leadership Award, his service has taken many forms: artistic director, educator, arts journalist and essayist, public speaker, theater historian, and advocate for artists. He is also an award-winning novelist.
Mary B. Robinson is a stage director, teacher, and writer whose career has spanned four decades. She was the first recipient of the Alan Schneider Directing Award in 1987, a 1986 Drama Desk nominee for Lanford Wilson’s Lemon Sky, and winner of Philadelphia’s Barrymore Award for Of Mice and Men in 1995. She was on the executive board of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society for 15 years. Her previous book, Directing Plays, Directing People: A Collaborative Art, was published by Smith & Kraus in 2012.
About the event
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Please note that the purchase of. “The Long Revolution: Sixty Years on the Frontlines of a New American Theater” ($25.95) or "To Repair the World: Zelda Fichlandler and the Transformation of American Theater" ($48.95) is required for entry.
Upon arrival, our team will direct you to the register to obtain your copy and complete your admission.
The store will begin welcoming guests at 7:15 pm.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
The Drama Book Shop, 266 West 39th Street, New York, United States
USD 0.00
