Albee, Malina, Rodriguez Join Feingold At NYU's Provincetown Playhouse

Tony Award-winning playwright Edward Albee, Obie Award winner and founder of the Living Theatre Judith Malina, and director of the archives of La Mama Experimental Theater Ozzie Rodriguez, will join in a discussion with Village Voice theatre critic Michael Feingold on Sun., Dec. 19 at 7 p.m. at the Provincetown Playhouse, 133 MacDougal Street. The event, which is free and open to the public, is co-sponsored by the Off-Broadway League and NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

Reservations, which are required, can be made by phone at 212.998.5000 or online at http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/music/provincetown/rsvp. Seating is limited. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.

This special panel discussion on the history of off-Broadway theatre in Greenwich Village brings together three of the leading lights of American drama in a theatre of historic importance-the Provincetown Playhouse. The Playhouse, which was the first to present the work of Eugene O'Neill and others, was the site of the American debut of Albee's first play, The Zoo Story in 1960.

About the panelists:
Edward Albee was born on March 12, 1928, and began writing plays 30 years later. His plays include The Zoo Story (1958), The Death of Bessie Smith (1959), The Sandbox (1959), The American Dream (1960), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1961-62, Tony Award), Tiny Alice (1964), A Delicate Balance (1966, Pulitzer Prize; 1996, Tony Award), All Over (1971), Seascape (1974, Pulitzer Prize), Listening (1975), Counting the Ways (1975), The Lady from Dubuque (1977-78), The Man Who Had Three Arms (1981), Finding the Sun (1982), Marriage Play (1986-87), Three Tall Women (1991, Pulitzer Prize), Fragments (1993), The Play About the Baby (1997), The Goat or, Who is Sylvia? (2000, 2002 Tony Award), Occupant (2001), At Home At the Zoo: (Act 1, Homelife. Act 2, The Zoo Story) (2004), and Me, Myself, & I (2008). He is a member of the Dramatists Guild Council, and President of The Edward F. Albee Foundation. Albee was awarded the Gold Medal in Drama from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1980. In 1996 he received the Kennedy Center Honors and the National Medal of Arts. In 2005, he was awarded a special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Judith Malina, Founder of The Living Theatre, is an eight time OBIE Award winner and recipient of numerous international awards: Premio Ubu (Italy), 2008 Ordem do Merito Cultural do Ministerio da Cultura (Brazil), Guggenheim Fellowship (1985), Theatre Hall of Fame. Her work has challenged the forms, content and style of the theatre and its relationship to and with the audience.

Osvaldo (Ozzie) Rodriguez is a native New Yorker. A Resident Director of Ellen Stewart's La Mama Experimental Theater, since the early 1970's, Ozzie has also been the Director of the La Mama Archive since 1987. A bilingual playwright and actor, Ozzie is Founder and Artistic Director of two experimental theatre companies; Long Island's first in 1973 and the Sol/Sun Experimental Theatre Company of San Antonio, Texas in 1981. His plays, written and adapted include The Beauty and The Beast, The Phantom Ruin, Quincas / King of the Vagabonds, Alma /The Ghost of Spring Street, and Madre Del Sol / Mother Of The Sun, for which he received the Distinguished Contributions to Hispanic Culture Award. He has toured throughout the world as a member of the Great Jones Repertory and La Mama Umbria Company's.

About the moderator:
Michael Feingold is chief theater critic for The Village Voice, where he will celebrate his 40th year as a contributor in February 2011. A winner of the George Jean Nathan Award and twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism, he has maintained a constant second career in the theater, working variously as playwright, translator, director and dramaturg. The LA Opera production of Kurt Weill's Mahagonny, sung in his translation, was broadcast on PBS and won Grammy Awards for both Best Classical Album and Best Opera Recording when it was released on DVD last year - the first time an opera sung in translation has been accorded either honor.

Photo Credit: BWW-Staff