ANN Launches the Great American Women Talkback Series With Lily Tomlin, Eve Ensler and More

ANN, the new critically acclaimed play written and performed by Emmy Award-winning actress and 2013 Outer Critics Circle Award Nominee Holland Taylor, is launching the Great American Women Talkback Series, which will feature post-show discussions hosted by Tony and Emmy Award winner Lily Tomlin, Tony award winning playwright and activist Eve Ensler, feminist activist and writer Gloria Steinem, and award winning political humorist Kate Clinton. All talkbacks are complimentary with ticket purchase to Ann at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre (150 West 65th Street). Ann is directed by Benjamin Endsley Klein, and has been extended through Sunday, September 1, 2013.

The first of these talkbacks will be a Q&A with Lily Tomlin moderated by Kate Clinton on Wednesday, May 8th following the 2pm matinee performance.

On Tuesday, June 11th following the 7pm performance, Ann welcomes Tony winning playwright, performer, and activist Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologues) for a post-show discussion.

Following the 7pm performance on Tuesday, June 25, 2013, feminist activist and writer Gloria Steinem will lead a post-show talkback titled "More about Ann - And the Future." Ms. Steinem will lead a discussion about women in politics, both the history and the future, and her work campaigning for Ann Richards and as a colleague. "More about Ann - And the Future" is complimentary with ticket purchase to the 7pm performance of Ann Tuesday, June 25, 2013. Whether you want to ask questions or suggest answers, come and join us for a lively discussion that carries on Ann Richards' spirit.

Lily Tomlin, one of America's foremost comediennes, continues to venture across an ever-widening range of media, starring in television, theater, motion pictures, animation, and video. Throughout her extraordinary career, Tomlin has received numerous awards, including: six Emmys; a Tony for her one woman Broadway show, Appearing Nitely; a second Tony for Best Actress, a Drama Desk Award and an Outer Critics' Circle Award for her one woman performance in Jane Wagner's The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe; a CableAce Award for Executive Producing the film adaptation of The Search; a Grammy for her comedy album, This is a Recording as well as nominations for her subsequent albums Modern Scream, And That's the Truth, and On Stage; and two Peabody Awards--the first for the ABC television special, Edith Ann's Christmas: Just Say Noël, and the second for narrating and executive producing the HBO film, The Celluloid Closet. In 2003, she was the recipient of the prestigious Mark Twain Prize for American Humor presented at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC.

Kate Clinton is a faith-based, tax-paying, America-loving political humorist and family entertainer. She is an author (3 books), performer (9 CDs, 3 DVDs), columnist, film and stage actress, TV commentator, and as a blogger, vlogger, facebooker and tweeter she is multi-formatted to the max. This year Kate's SIS-BOOM-BAH tour will make stops throughout the US. With a career spanning over thirty years, Kate Clinton has worked through economic booms and busts, Disneyfication and Walmartization, gay movements and gay markets, lesbian chic and queer eyes, and eight presidential inaugurals. She still believes that humor gets us through peacetime, wartime, scoundrel time and economic down times. For more information: http://www.kateclinton.com

Eve Ensler is a Tony award winning playwright, performer and activist. She is the author of international phenomenon, The Vagina Monologues, which won an Obie and has been published in 48 languages and performed in over 140 countries. Eve wrote the New York Times Bestseller, I Am An Emotional Creature: The Secret Life Of Girls Around The World. She then adapted it as a play which ran to critical acclaim in South Africa, Paris, Berkeley and Off-Broadway. She is the founder of V-Day, the global movement to end violence against women and girls, which has raised over 100 million dollars for grassroots organizations around the world. On V-Day's 15th Anniversary, it launched it's most ambitious campaign One Billion Rising which inspired one billion people in 207 countries to Strike Dance and Rise on Feb 14, 2013 for the freedom, safety and equality of women. With the women of Congo, V-Day opened and supports City of Joy In Bukavu, Congo, a revolutionary center where survivors of gender violence Turn Their Pain to Power. Eve starred in the HBO version of The Vagina Monologues. Her play Here was filmed live by Sky Television in London, UK. She co-produced the documentary What I Want My Words to You which won the Freedom of Expression Award at Sundance. Her other plays include Necessary Targets, The Treatment and The Good Body, which she performed on Broadway, followed by a national tour. In 2006, Eve released her book, Insecure At Last: A Political Memoir, and co-edited A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and a Prayer. Her newest book In The Body of the World was just published by Holt.

Gloria Steinem is a founder of the National Women's Political Caucus with Bella Abzug and Shirley Chisholm and has spent more than forty years as an on-the-road campaigner for pro-equality candidates. Ms. Steinem is a writer, lecturer, editor, and feminist activist. She travels the globe as an organizer and lecturer and is a frequent media spokeswoman on equality issues. She is interested in the shared origins of sex and race caste systems, gender roles and child abuse as roots of violence, non-violent conflict resolution, the cultures of indigenous peoples, and organizing across boundaries for peace and justice. She currently lives in New York and is working on a book about her more than thirty years on the road as a feminist organizer.

ANN is an intimate, no-holds-barred portrait of Ann Richards, the legendary Governor of Texas. This inspiring and hilarious new play brings us face to face with a complex, colorful and captivating character bigger than the state from which she hailed. Written and performed by Emmy Award winner Holland Taylor ("Two and a Half Men"), Ann takes a revealing look at the impassioned woman who enriched the lives of her followers, friends and family.

ANN has scenic design by Michael Fagin, costume design by Julie Weiss, lighting design by Matthew Richards, sound design by Ken Huncovsky, projection design by Zachary Borovay and wig design by Paul Huntley. Ann is produced by Bob Boyett and Harriet Newman Leve with co-producers Jane Dubin, Jack Thomas/Mark Johannes and Amy Danis, Sarahbeth Grossman, Jon Cryer/Lisa Joyner, Minerva Productions, Lary Brandt/Brian Dorsey, Kate Hathaway/Allison Thomas and Jennifer Isaacson in association with Lincoln Center Theater, Colleen Barrett, Nancy T. Beren, Francesca Zambello and Faith Gay, Patrick Terry/Rich Affannato, Marcy Adelman/Paula Kaminsky Davis, Campbell Spencer/ Suisman Gasparian and Bonnie Levinson/Emily Conner. Ann is executive produced by Kevin Bailey.

ANN played to sold-out audiences at Galveston's Grand 1894 Opera House in the summer of 2010, San Antonio's Empire Theatre in the fall of 2010, and Austin's Paramount Theatre in the spring of 2011. In the fall of 2011 the new play opened to critical acclaim at Chicago's Bank of America Theatre, and went on to have a smash hit run at Washington DC's Kennedy Center in winter of 2011/2012.

The playing schedule for Ann is: Tuesday and Thursday at 7pm, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday at 8pm, with matinees Wednesday and Saturday at 2pm and Sunday at 3pm. Tickets range from $75 - $125 and can purchased at the Vivian Beaumont Theater box office, online at lct.org or through Telecharge.com (212-239-6200). A limited number of tickets priced at $30 will be available at every performance through LincTix, LCT's program for 21 to 35 year olds. For information or to enroll, visit LincTix.org. A limited number of $30.00 Student tickets for Ann are available two hours prior to curtain at the box office. Students must show a valid student ID card. There is a limit of 1 ticket per ID.