DRIVING MISS DAISY Announces Post-Performance Talk Backs

Producers Jed Bernstein and Adam Zotovich announced today that Driving Miss Daisy will host a series of post-performance talk-backs, the first of which will take place immediately following the 8:00 PM performance on Martin Luther King Day (Monday, January 17). The discussion will include Driving Miss Daisy's Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Alfred Uhry, its director David Esbjornson, and Dr. Vivaldi Jean-Marie, a Columbia University professor specializing in African American Philosophy.

Dr. King is an off stage presence in Driving Miss Daisy, and his impact on race relations in mid-century America serves as a catalyst for the evolution of Hoke and Daisy's relationship. The post-show discussion will explore Dr. King's impact on American society and the complex race relationships presented in play.

The series will continue into February to help celebrate Black History Month, with talk-backs following all Wednesday evening performances throughout the month. The first Wednesday evening talk-back on February 2, 2011, will include CBS News Correspondent Michelle Miller and her husband, Marc Morial, President of the National Urban League and former New Orleans mayor. Additional participants for the February talk-backs will be announced shortly.

The current smash hit revival of Driving Miss Daisy is now playing at the Golden Theatre, where it opened to rave reviews on October 25, 2010 and was recently extended through Saturday, April 9, 2011.

Uhry's classic play is a timeless, searing, funny, and ultimately hopeful meditation on race relations in America, told through the complex relationship between two of popular culture's most enduring characters. When Daisy Werthan (Redgrave), a widowed, 72-year-old Jewish woman living in midcentury Atlanta, is deemed too old to drive, her son, Boolie (Gaines), hires Hoke Coleburn (Jones), an African American man, to serve as her chauffeur. What begins as a troubled and hostile pairing, soon blossoms into a profound, life-altering friendship that transcends all the societal boundaries placed between them.

From its landmark Off-Broadway production in 1987 to the remarkable success of the Oscar-winning film version (4 Academy Awards, including Best Picture), Driving Miss Daisy has become one of the most beloved American stories of the late twentieth century.

The creative team of Driving Miss Daisy includes John Lee Beatty (Scenic Design), Jane Greenwood (Costume Design), Peter Kaczorowski (Lighting Design), Wendall K. Harrington (Projection Design), Christopher Cronin (Sound Design) and Mark Bennett (Music).

Driving Miss Daisy is produced on Broadway by Jed Bernstein, Adam Zotovich, Elizabeth Ireland McCann, Roger Berlind, Beth Kloiber, Albert Nocciolino, Jon Platt, StylesFour Productions, Ruth Hendel/Shawn Emamjomeh, Larry Hirschhorn/Spring Sirkin, Carl Moellenberg/Wendy Federman, Daryl Roth/Jane Bergére, in association with Michael Filerman.

Driving Miss Daisy currently plays the following performance schedule: Monday, Wednesday - Saturday at 8:00 p.m., Tuesday at 7:00 p.m., with matinees on Wednesday and Saturday at 2:00 p.m. Beginning the week of January 31, 2011, the show will play Tuesday at 7:00 p.m., Wednesday - Saturday at 8:00 p.m., with matinees on Wednesday and Saturday at 2:00 p.m. Tickets ($66.50 - $131.50) are on sale via Telecharge.com and at the box office of the Golden Theatre. Student tickets (one ticket per ID, subject to availability) are available for day-of purchase at the box office for $26.50.

Biographies

Alfred Uhry (Playwright) is distinguished as the only American playwright to have won a Pulitzer Prize, an Academy Award and two Tony Awards. Uhry began his professional career as a lyric writer under contract to the late Frank Loesser and made his Broadway debut in 1968 as the lyricist for Here's Where I Belong. His first major success was Broadway's The Robber Bridegroom, for which he wrote the book and lyrics, followed by five re-created musicals at the Goodspeed Opera House. His first play, Driving Miss Daisy, opened Off Broadway in 1987 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. The film version, starring Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy, won Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay in 1990. Other works include: The Light Night of Ballyhoo (Tony Award), Parade (Tony Award), Without Walls (starring Laurence Fishburne), Edgardo Mine (at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis), and the book for the Broadway musical LoveMusik (Drama Desk nomination). His latest play, Carl's Sister, will be presented at the Manhattan Theatre Club later this season.

David Esbjornson (Director). Premieres include: Edward Albee's The Goat or Who is Sylvia? (Broadway) and The Play About the Baby (Century), Angels in America: Millenium Approaches and the first staged presentation of Perestroika (Eureka), Homebody/Kabul (London), The Ride Down Mt. Morgan (Broadway) and Resurrection Blues by Arthur Miller (Guthrie), Neal Bell's Therese Raquin (CSC), In the Blood by Suzan-Lori Parks (Public), Albom/Hatcher's Tuesdays With Morrie (Minetta Lane), Neil Simon's Rose & Walsh, Israel Horowitz's My Old Lady (Promenade), Kathleen Tolan's Memory House (Playwrights) and Ariel Dorfman's Purgatorio (SRT). Recent work: Moira Buffini's Gabriel and Peter Parnell's Trumpery (Atlantic), Allison and Margaret Engels' Molly Ivins (PTC), Kevin Kling's How? How? Why? Why? Why? (Cincinnati). Revivals include: Death of a Salesman (Gate-Dublin), Hamlet (TFNY), A Few Good Men (West End), All My Sons (Huntington), Much Ado About Nothing (NYSF), The Normal Heart (Public), Mud and Drowning (Signature), The Entertainer, The Maids, Endgame, Entertaining Mr. Sloane (CSC), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Summer and Smoke (Guthrie), Twelfth Night and Lady From Dubuque (SRT), Farmyard (NYTW). David has served as Artistic Director of NYC Classic Stage Company and Seattle Repertory Theatre.

Vivaldi Jean-Marie completed his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the New School for Social Research in New York City, his M.A. in Philosophy from Brock University in Ontario, Canada, his B.A. Honors in
Philosophy from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada and a Diplôme d'études collégiales (DEC) Sciences humaines et sociales from Dawson College in Montreal, Canada. He is the author of Fanon: Collective Ethics and Humanism and Kierkegaard: History and Eternal Happiness. His third book about Haitian Voodoo and Rastafarianism in Jamaica is currently under review at Fordham University Press. His areas of specialization are African-American Philosophy, Philosophical Perspectives on Race/Racism and Diaspora, Continental Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, and Modern Philosophy. He is fluent in French and has reading knowledge of German. He is an adjunct Assistant Professor of Philosophy & African-American Studies at Columbia University.