Bill Irwin to Host (Un)Silent Film Night

The New School's College of Performing Arts is pleased to welcome the public for the second edition of its new (Un)Silent Film Night series, in which the College of Performing Arts Theater Orchestra, under the baton ofGary Fagin, will perform contemporary composer Carl Davis' score to Harold Lloyd's classic silent film Speedy (1928). Celebrated actor and comedian Bill Irwin will host the event, a follow-up to the April 2015 debut of (Un)SilentFilm Night, which was hosted by Matthew Broderick and drew a capacity crowd to the 400-plus-seat Tishman Auditorium at University Center.

The upcoming (Un)Silent Film Night will take place Tuesday, November 24 at 7pm at Tishman Auditorium (63 Fifth Avenue, NYC). Admission is free and open to the public.

Speedy is one of Harold Lloyd's most stylish comedies, and his last silent film. He plays a young man who is continually distracted by baseball but eventually makes a good and saves New York's last horse-drawn trolley (belonging to his girl's grandfather) from railroad tycoons. Shot on location in New York, the film pays tribute to the city with evocative scenes featuring Coney Island, Yankee Stadium, Herald Square, Penn Station, the Brooklyn Bridge and more. The legendary baseball star Babe Ruth makes an extended appearance.

In Un(Silent) Film Night, the College of Performing Arts Theater Orchestra-featuring students from both Mannes School of Music and The School of Jazz-will perform Davis' 1996 score, which draws sounds ranging from symphonic music to 1920s jazz. The event takes place one week after the November 18 ribbon-cutting for Mannes School of Music's new home downtown, on the eve of the conservatory's 100th anniversary, into renovated Arnhold Hall facilities designed by Deborah Berke Partners on the New School campus, in close proximity to The School of Jazz, The School of Drama, and the rest of the design, liberal arts and social science university. Noah Chasin, an architecture faculty member at the Parsons School of Design, will speak about the New York City landmarks featured in the film.

Richard Kessler, Executive Dean for the College of Performing Arts, said, "(Un)Silent Film Night demonstrates the potential that students and faculty are able to realize now that Mannes, the School of Jazz and the School of Drama have been brought together in our new College of Performing Arts. The program-like so many programs in the current professional arts landscape-brings together multiple art forms in a single production, and allows students to collaborate across disciplines. This year's film, Harold Lloyd's Speedy, also brings together New York City, past and present, as Carl Davis' score provides a new lens through which to experience the film, shot on location in the city nearly a century ago."

Bill Irwin (Host) has starred in many Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regional theater productions, including The Goat or Who is Sylvia, opposite Sally Field; Accidental Death of An Anarchist; 5-6-7-8 Dance!; Waiting For Godot;Scapin; The Tempest; Garden of Earthly Delights; Texts for Nothing; and many others.

Irwin starred on Broadway and London's West End in the revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, for which he won the 2005 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. The production had a national tour in 2007.

On TV, he has appeared on "Saturday Night Live," "The Tonight Show," "The Cosby Show," "3rd Rock From the Sun," "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," "Life on Mars" (U.S.), "Law & Order; SVU," HBO's "Bette Midler, Mondo Beyondo," CBS's "Northern Exposure," and, with great pride, "Sesame Street" in one of his most famous roles, Mr. Noodle. In Britain, he appeared on BBC's "Paul Daniels Magic Show." Irwin has also appeared in many film and television productions, including the PBS Great Performances telecasts "Bill Irwin Clown Prince" and "The Regard of Flight." Prior to Rachel Getting Married, Irwin appeared in such films as Popeye, Eight Men Out, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Igby Goes Down, Lady in the Water, Dark Matter, Raving, Across The Universe and others.

Irwin has won many awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts Choreographer's Fellowship, and Guggenheim, Fulbright and MacArthur Fellowships.

Gary S. Fagin (Music Director, Conductor) has conducted, composed, orchestrated and arranged music for symphony orchestra across the country, ballet, Broadway and Off-Broadway, public radio, regional and repertory theaters and university and conservatory orchestras. He is the Music Director of The Knickerbocker Chamber Orchestra in New York City and The Bucks County Symphony Orchestra in Pennsylvania and conducts The New Jersey Ballet's annual production of The Nutcracker. Mr. Fagin served as Musical Director and Conductor for seven years at the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven and for three seasons at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge. His many theater conducting credits include The Three Penny Opera with Sting on Broadway.

Active as a composer, his Charlotte: Life? Or Theater?, a music theater work based on the life and work of artist Charlotte Salomon, received its world premiere performance to critical acclaim at the Prince Music Theater in Philadelphia in 2001; his dramatic song cycle, John Adams in Amsterdam; A Song for Abigail, received its world premiere performance at The Concertgebouw in Amsterdam before Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands in April 2005.

Mr. Fagin is Founder and Director of The New York Conducting Studio; his students conduct major and regional orchestras, on Broadway, and attend America's most prestigious music conservatories.

Noah Chasin (Special Guest) is a faculty member in the Architecture program at the Parsons School of Design. He earned his B.A. from Oberlin College; and is M.A. and Ph.D in Architectural History from the CUNY Graduate Center. Awards include the John Rewald Memorial Dissertation Fellowship, the Mellon Seminar Fellowship, and the Getty Research Fellowship. He was a Professor of Architectural History at Bard College 2003-13. Has also taught at the Cornell, Columbia, RISD, and Pratt schools of architecture, and is affiliated with Columbia's Institute for the Study of Human Rights. His art and architectural criticism has been published in in ArtForum, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Journal of Architectural Education, The Architect's Newspaper, Art Journal, Architecture + Ideas, Art Nexus and Arconoticias. His research interests include the intersection of human rights and urban studies, critical evaluations of the use of public space, and the history of participatory urban design.