The League of Professional Theatre Women with the generous support of the Betty R. and Ralph Sheffer Foundation is pleased to present Award-Winning actress Mercedes Ruehl interviewed by Andrea Chapin for the next Oral History, on Monday, January 13, 2014 at 6:00 pm at the Bruno Walter Auditorium of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts on 65th Street & Amsterdam Avenue. Admission is free, seats are on a first-come-first-seated basis. Visit http://theatrewomen.org/2013/11/27/oral-history-january-13-at-6pm/ for more information.
Betty Corwin, who produces the Oral History series, expressed her "delight that award-winning actress Mercedes Ruehl, highly acclaimed for her performances on stage, screen and on television has agreed to be interviewed for our series."
Oral History Project: This season all three Oral History interviews are being supported by the Betty R. and Ralph Sheffer Foundation. In October, the League of Professional Theatre Women interviewed
Tyne Daly; another interview will take place on Monday May 5th, 2014. Last season through the generous support from the
Edith Meiser Foundation, the League interviewed
Patti LuPone,
Christine Ebersole, and playwright
Kia Corthron. The prior season included
Donna Murphy and
Frances McDormand. The ongoing Oral History Project chronicles and documents the contributions of significant theatre women in many fields. The interviews are videotaped and preserved for posterity in the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.
Mercedes Ruehl won an Academy Award, Golden Globe, L.A. Film Critics, and Venice Film Festival awards for best actress in the film The Fisher King. After studying with
Uta Hagen in New York, she performed the classics in major theatres throughout the country and performed in plays by
Albert Innaurato (Coming of Age in Soho),
Christopher Durang (The Marriage of Bette and Boo (Obie Award)), in
Len Jenkins' American Notes, in Other People's Money (
Clarence Derwent Award), and in
Herb Gardner's I'm Not Rappaport. Her film career included BIG, Married to the Mob, Heartburn, Funny People, Last Action Hero, and Another You. After returning to Broadway in Lost in Yonkers (Tony, Outer Critics' Circle, Drama Desk,
Helen Hayes Award), she reprised the role in the film. Other TV films include Indictment, North Shore Fish, Guilt by Association, A Girl Like Me and GIA, and independent films Amati Girls, What's Cooking, and Minus Man. She created roles for the television series Frasier, Luck, Entourage, Law and Order, and Monday Mornings. She appeared in Shadowbox by Michel Christopher (Tony Nomination) and
Tennessee Williams' Rose Tattoo, starred in
Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf at the
Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, on Broadway in
Edward Albee's The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? ( Drama Desk Award and Tony nomination) and won a second Obie Award for Woman Before Glass. More recently she created the role of Louise Nevelson in
Edward Albee's Occupant and starred in
Richard Greenberg's The American Planand in a revival of
Neil Simon's Prisoner of Second Avenue at London's Old Vic Theatre. Over the years, Mercedes has taught a series of master classes at Juilliard.
ANDREA CHAPIN has been an editor at art, movie, theater, and literary magazines, including The Paris Review, Conjunctions and The
Lincoln Center Theater Review. Her fiction has appeared in literary journals, and her articles and essays have appeared in magazines such as More, Redbook, Town & Country, Self,
Martha Stewart Living, and Marie Claire UK. Chapin has contributed to several anthologies, including The Day My Father Died and Kiss Tomorrow Hello: Notes from the Midlife Underground and The Honeymoon's Over: True Stories of Love, Marriage & Divorce, of which she was co-editor. The Tutor, her novel about Shakespeare's fictitious muse and editor during his "lost years," is forthcoming from Riverhead Books/Penguin Group USA. Chapin has acted professionally, touring Germany in
Edward Albee's Seascape. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.
ABOUT LPTW: The League of Professional Theatre Women is a not-for-profit 501 (c)(3) organization. It presents numerous events each year as part of its mission to promote visibility and increase opportunities for women in the field. None of its work is possible without generous philanthropic support. The League, celebrating its thirtieth anniversary, now boasts a membership of nearly 500 women representing a diversity of theatre professionals in both the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors. League members are actors, administrators, agents, arrangers, casting directors, choreographers, company managers, composers, critics, designers, directors, dramaturges, dramatists, educators, general managers, historians, journalists, librettists, lyricists, press agents, playwrights, producers, stage managers, and theatre technicians. To find out more about how you can support its endeavors, visit the website
www.theatrewomen.org and click on the "Support Us" tab.
