Julie Taymor Speaks at Pace University's Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts Tonight

Julie Taymor, Oscar-winning director widely renowned for her innovative Broadway production of "The Lion King" and as the driving force behind "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark," will appear at Pace University's "The Masters Series" at Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts on Monday at 6:00p.m. Other celebrity participants scheduled to appear in the series include Academy award-winning performer Liza Minnelli.

This event is part of "The Masters Series," a program dedicated to providing Pace performing arts students with opportunities to meet and talk with performing arts industry icons. The evening's guests engage in discussions of their techniques and bodies of work, followed by a Q&A session with Pace BFA and BA Performing Arts students.

Taymor is a director of theater, opera and film. She was the first woman to win the Tony Award for directing a musical for "The Lion King," in addition to a Tony Award for Original Costume Design. She has also received the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design, an Emmy Award and an Academy Award nomination for Original Song. Among Taymor's achievements in opera is the acclaimed "The Magic Flute" at the Met. Her film "Frida" garnered six Oscar nominations and two Academy Awards, including one for Salma Hayek in the title role. Taymor has also been praised for her iconoclastic film adaptations of "Titus Andronicus" (starring Anthony Hopkins, Alan Cumming, and Jessica Lange) and "The Tempest" (with Helen Mirren as Prospera).

Joining Taymor for this Masters Series round-table discussion will be John Andrews, president of the Shakespeare Guild, and Cosmin Chivu, winner of the 2012 Drama League's New Directors/New Works Project and director of the BA International Performance Ensemble at Pace Performing Arts.

The talk will take place tonight, Jan. 28, 2013 at 6:00p.m. at Pace University, Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts, 3 Spruce St., New York, NY. Directions HERE. Cost is $15 for the public, $5 for non-Pace students. Open seating. Reservations: PerformingArtsPress@pace.edu.

About Performing Arts at Pace University: Pace University's Performing Arts Department offers Bachelor of Fine Arts Degrees in Acting, Musical Theater and Commercial Dance, a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theater Arts with specialized focuses in Acting, Commercial Dance, Directing or Design/Technical Theater. For more information, visit www.pace.edu/dyson/performingarts.

About Pace University: For over 100 years, Pace has produced thinking professionals by providing high quality education for the professions on a firm base of liberal learning amid the advantages of the New York metropolitan area. A private university, Pace has campuses in New York City and Westchester County, New York, enrolling nearly 13,000 students in bachelor's, master's, and doctoral programs in its Lubin School of Business, Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, College of Health Professions, School of Education, School of Law, and Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems.

Pace is also home to The Actors Studio Drama School with the only MFA theater program officially sanctioned by The Actors Studio. The curriculum is designed jointly by the presidents of The Actors Studio, Ellen Burstyn, Harvey Keitel and Al Pacino. Students participate in craft seminars known to the world as the Bravo Network television series, "Inside The Actors Studio," hosted by James Lipton. For further information about the program, go to www.pace.edu/actorsstudiomfa.