The New Group's REFLECTING RABE Opens Tonight, 4/15

On Sunday, April 15, at 4 pm, The New Group presents this season's final presentation in Dark Nights at The New Group – Reflecting Rabe: Readings from David Rabe's Work. This event features readings of excerpts from David Rabe's acclaimed writing, from plays to fiction. Special guests, including Bobby Cannavale, Judith Ivey and Matthew Modine, will read selections and reflect on Rabe's singular career. Discussion with David Rabe and guests will follow.

Now in its fourth season, Dark Nights at The New Group is a series of cultural conversations and readings designed to create a dialogue between artists and audience.  Dark Nights generally coincide with mainstage productions at The New Group, creating a forum for public conversation and enhancing the cultural landscape.  These events have featured, most recently, Ethan Hawke and Jonathan Marc Sherman discussing Sherman's new play inspired by Brecht's Baal; Scott Elliott, Lisa Emery, Mamie Gummer, Josh Hamilton and Wallace Shawn in Hamlet at Home; and Thomas Bradshaw and Todd Solondz in Talking Taboos.  Previous Dark Nights events have featured luminaries such as F. Murray Abraham, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Eric Bogosian, Zoe Caldwell, David Henry Hwang, Tony Kushner, Martha Plimpton and Hal Prince.  Dark Nights at The New Group collaborated with the 92nd Street Y for an event featuring Matthew Broderick and Kenneth Lonergan (The Starry Messenger), moderated by Leonard Lopate.  Topics have ranged from gay adoption (in an event hosted by Rosie O'Donnell timed to The Kid) to an evening highlighting Sam Shepard's work (led by Ethan Hawke with music by the composers from A Lie of the Mind), to a panel on documentary theatre (featuring Marc Wolf performing Another American, his OBIE-winning play first produced at The New Group ten years ago).

Tony Award-winning playwright David Rabe's first play in New York in 1971 was The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel.  This was followed by Sticks and Bones, The Orphan, In the Boom Boom Room and Streamers, all produced by Joseph Papp.  Hurlyburly came later, as did Those the River Keeps, A Question of Mercy, The Dog Problem and The Black Monk adapted from Chekhov.  In recent years he has devoted his time more to fiction as he pursued a course begun with the novel Recital of the Dog.  Since 2005 he has published A Primitive Heart, a book of stories, and two novels, Dinosaurs on the Roof and Girl by the Road at Night.  A fourth novel was completed not long ago, along with several plays.  Among his awards are the Drama Desk, NY Drama Critics Circle, Outer Critics, Obie, American Academy of Arts and Letters, Tony and three Hull-Warriner Awards.

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