LCT's Platform Series Continues With NIKOLAI AND THE OTHERS, 5/29

Lincoln Center Theater's Platform Series, a forum for public discussion between Lincoln Center Theater artists and interested theatergoers, continues its 15th season on Wednesday, May 29 at 6:00 pm with actors Blair Brown, Michael Cerveris, John Glover and Stephen Kunken from NIKOLAI AND THE OTHERS, currently playing at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater.

Platform Series events take place in the early evening in the lobby of the Vivian Beaumont Theater (150 West 65th Street). Admission is free and open to all; however, seating in the lobby is limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis only, beginning at a half hour before the talk. (Speakers and schedules are subject to change. Call 212-362-7600 to confirm on the day of the event.)

It's 1948 and during a spring weekend in Westport, CT. a close-knit group of Russian émigrés, including choreographer George Balanchine (Michael Cerveris), composer Igor Stravinsky (John Glover), conductor Serge Koussevitsky (Dale Place), painter/set designer Sergey Sudeikin (Alvin Epstein) and composer Nikolai Nabokov (Stephen Kunken), gather to eat, drink and talk. In NIKOLAI AND THE OTHERS playwright Richard Nelson reimagines, during the course of this weekend, the creation of Balanchine and Stravinsky's historic collaboration, the ballet Orpheus, and explores the interesting and controversial ways American art was funded at the outset of the Cold War.

Blair Brown returns to Lincoln Center Theater after appearing in The Clean House and Arcadia. She received a Tony Award for her performance in Copenhagen as well as multiple Emmy nominations for her performance in the title role of the classic TV series "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd." Michael Cerveris' Lincoln Center Theater credits include In The Next Room or the vibrator play and Cymbeline. He has appeared on Broadway in Evita, Hedda Gabler, Sweeney Todd, and received a Tony Award for Assassins. John Glover is making his LCT debut in Nikolai and the Others, but is best known for his roles on Broadway in Death of a Salesman,Waiting for Godot, and Love! Valour! Compassion! for which he received a Tony Award. Stephen Kunken, who plays the title role of Nikolai Nabokov, received a Tony Award nomination for his performance in Enron. His other Broadway credits include The Columnist,High, Frost/Nixon, Rock 'n' Roll, Festen and Proof.

Lincoln Center Theater's Platform series was introduced in the summer of 1998. Transcripts of the previous talks are available on-line at www.lct.org.