Cynthia Nixon, Kelli O'Hara & More to Take Part in WALL TO WALL SELECTED SHORTS

Symphony Space will present Wall to Wall Selected Shorts, a monumental celebration of short fiction, March 26 in Symphony Space's Peter Jay Sharp theater in New York City (2537 Broadway at 95th Street). For this free event, beginning at 11am and running until 11pm, Symphony Space has commissioned 35 new short stories from some of today's most highly regarded writers, which will be read by a stellar lineup of actors.

The cast includes Krystina Alabado, Joan Allen, Raffi Barsoumian, Purva Bedi, Becca Blackwell, Wyatt Cenac, Kathleen Chalfant, Deborah S. Craig, David Cross, Crystal Dickinson, Hugh Dancy, Mia Dillon, Mike Doyle, Santino Fontana, Dion Graham, Zach Grenier, Julie Halston, Michael Hartney, Zainab Jah, Jane Kaczmarek, Vanessa Kai, Patricia Kalember, Kennedy Kanagawa, Stephen Lang, Sonia Manzano, Javier Muñoz, James Naughton, Cynthia Nixon, Kelli O'Hara, Alysia Reiner, Anika Noni Rose, Dawn Akemi Saito, Liev Schreiber, Tony Shalhoub, Michael Shannon, Miriam Shor, Emily Skeggs, Calvin Leon Smith, Sarah Steele, Amber Tamblyn, TL Thompson, Sam Underwood, Rita Wolf, and more.

The authors who have penned new short stories for the event are Rabih Alameddine, Jenny Allen, Aimee Bender, Marie-Helene Bertino, Jai Chakrabarti, Patrick Cottrell, Elizabeth Crane, Michael Cunningham, Patrick Dacey, Edwidge Danticat, Dave Eggers, Omar El Akkad, Lauren Groff, Jacob Guajardo, A.M. Homes, Mira Jacob, Jac Jemc, Etgar Keret, Lisa Ko, Victor LaValle, J. Robert Lennon, Ben Loory, Carmen Maria Machado, Juan Martinez, Maile Meloy, Joe Meno, Lesley Nneka Arimah, Susan Perabo, Helen Phillips, Namwali Serpell, Rivers Solomon, Elizabeth Strout, Luis Alberto Urrea, Jess Walter, and Weike Wang. The program will also include a bonus story specifically for Wall to Wall Selected Shorts by Simon Rich.

Wall to Wall Selected Shorts will feature world-premiere commissions inspired by these stories from cartoonist Roz Chast, illustrator Michael Arthur, filmmaker Adam Douglas Thompson, choreographers Larry Keigwin, Heidi Latsky, and Leonardo Sandoval, musicians Lakecia Benjamin, Laura Gibson, Marcy Heisler & Zina Goldrich, DJ Raydar Ellis, and more.

The pioneering literature-in-performance series Selected Shorts was born at Symphony Space in 1985 and has since spawned a weekly radio show now heard on over 130 stations nationwide; a podcast that has subscribers around the world; audio collections; and national tours. It was conceived with a simple premise: take classic and new stories by well-known and emerging writers and have them brought to life by leading stage and screen actors. Whether featuring stories around a lively theme, the favorite works of a guest author, or a special collaboration, each Selected Shorts event is a unique evening. The series has welcomed guest hosts such as Roxane Gay, LeVar Burton, Cynthia Nixon, and David Sedaris, and performers including Stephen Colbert, Morgan Freeman, Greta Gerwig, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Zosia Mamet, John Cameron Mitchell, Anthony Ramos, Anika Noni Rose, and Meryl Streep, to name just a few.

"Wall to Wall Selected Shorts is a return to Symphony Space's origins in 1978, when co-founders Allan Miller and Isaiah Sheffer threw open the doors to the abandoned theater that would become our home and put on a single day-long, free event, Wall to Wall Bach. The spirit of that day is at the core of all we do," says Kathy Landau, Executive Director of Symphony Space. "Nearly four-and-a-half decades later, Wall to Wall Selected Shorts is another moment of origination, as we have commissioned 35 new works of fiction and have engaged some of our favorite artists, in a wide range of disciplines, to bring them to life. This event, years in the making, will be a spectacular tribute to the power and importance of the short story. We can't wait to gather our community-both on stage and in the audience-to celebrate Selected Shorts together."

Algonquin Books, in partnership with Symphony Space, just published the collection Small Odysseys: Selected Shorts Presents 35 New Stories, on March 15. Hannah Tinti, bestselling author of The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, edited the book, which features a foreword by Neil Gaiman. And Symphony Space just announced bestselling author Meg Wolitzer as the new permanent host of the Selected Shorts radio show and podcast.

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