F. Murray Abraham Will Appear in a Benefit Reading of Edward Albee's FRAGMENTS

F. Murray Abraham will appear in a special benefit performance of Edward Albee's FRAGMENTS on Saturday, April 6th, 2024, 8:00PM at Debonair Music Hall, 1409 Queen Anne Road b/w State Street and Walraven Drive in Teaneck, NJ 07666.  Debonair is adjacent to free street and municipal lot parking, and the venue offers accessible ground floor entry; doors open at 6:30, and the bar/restaurant is scheduled to be open throughout. Tickets, $40 in advance and $50 at the door, are now available at www.blackboxpac.com.  

F. Murray Abraham has appeared in more than 80 films including AMADEUS, for which he received the Academy Award for 'Best Actor,' as well as Golden Globe and L.A. Film Critics Awards.  Abraham's other films include THE NAME OF THE ROSE, FINDING FORRESTER, SCARFACE, THE RITZ, STAR TREK: INSURRECTION, THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL, INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS,  HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 3, HOUSE OF GERANIUMS, THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY, WHERE LOVE BEGINS, ROBIN HOOD, and LADY AND THE TRAMP where he sang "This is the Night, Bella Notte".

Mr. Abraham recently starred in the second season of HBO's THE WHITE LOTUS, for which he received an Emmy and Golden Globe nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. Mr. Abraham can currently be seen in the HBO limited series THE WHITE HOUSE PLUMBERS as “Judge John Sirica.” Previously, Mr. Abraham was a series regular on HOMELAND (2 Emmy nominations), and had memorable appearances on CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, THE GOOD WIFE, THE GOOD FIGHT, JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, MYTHIC QUEST, MARCO POLO, Louis CK, SHAKESPEARE UNCOVERED and CHIMERICA for the BBC. Additionally, he was featured in Guillermo Del Toro's critically acclaimed Netflix anthology series, 10 AFTER MIDNIGHT in the role of ‘Dr. Winters'.
A veteran of the stage, F. Murray Abraham has appeared in more than 90 plays, among them Chekhov's “Uncle Vanya” (Obie Award), “Trumbo”, “Standup Shakespeare”, the Italian tour of “Notturno Pirandelliano”, Susan Stroman's “A Christmas Carol”, the musical “Triumph Of Love”, “A Month In The Country”, the title roles in “Cyrano de Bergerac”, “King Lear”, “Macbeth”, “Richard III”, "The Merchant of Venice in rep with “The Jew of Malta” which he did at Stratford on Avon with the RSC, “The Seagull”, “Oedipus Rex”, “Creon”, “Angels In America” (Broadway), Arthur Miller's last play “The Ride Down Mt. Morgan”, “Waiting For Godot”, “The Caretaker”, “The Ritz", "Sexual Perversity In Chicago”, “Duck Variations”, “A Life In The Theatre”, “Paper Doll", "The Threepenny Opera”, “The Mentor”, and in Terrence McNally's “It's Only A Play” (Drama Desk Award nomination). He made his LA debut in Ray Bradbury's “The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit” and his NY debut as a Macy's Santa Claus, soon thereafter to Broadway in “The Man In The Glass Booth”, directed by Harold Pinter.

Mr. Abraham's book ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream: Actors On Shakespeare,' is published by Faber & Faber. He is proud to be the spokesman for The MultiFaith Alliance. Honors include The Moscow Art Theatre Stanislavski Award, The Sir John Gielgud Award for Excellence in Shakespeare, Obie Award for Lifetime Achievement, and a member of The New York Theater Hall of Fame

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). Mr. 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.

As described by Mr. Albee himself, FRAGMENTS "...is a tricky little play, great fun for actors, the construction of which bewildered many who could not comprehend that dramatic shape need not be linear but could be a vortex, moving from all sides at once toward a culminating center...[FRAGMENTS] lacks plot in any established sense; there is no clear dilemma and resolution—no ‘story,' no apparent sequentially. The piece proceeds as a piece of music does—accumulating, accumulating, following its own logic. Its effectiveness, its coherence reside in what we have experienced from the totality of it. FRAGMENTS is also a very simple, straightforward piece—on its own terms, of course.”

Black Box Rep Co performers including Michael Gardiner, Ilana Schimmel, J. Niles, Danielle MacMath, Alexandra Brokowski, Arthur Gregory Pugh, and Deb Maclean round out the ensemble; the director is Matt Okin; and FRAGMENTS is presented in special arrangement with The Estate of Edward Albee and Jakob Holder, Executive Director of The Edward F. Albee Foundation.

Since Fall 2021, Black Box PAC has incubated new and under-produced plays by world-class artists such as Eric Bogosian, Paul Schrader, Beth Henley, Craig Lucas, Neil LaBute, Daniel Handler, Ken Levine, and John Patrick Shanley. Collaborations are now underway with The Estates of Edward Albee, Sam Shepard, and I.B. Singer as well as with artists including John Lahr, Halley Feiffer, Billy Martin, and more: www.blackboxpac.com.

Debonair Music Hall is a live music venue that brings the best national touring acts and local bands to Teaneck, NJ. Enjoy delicious food and drinks while you experience the electrifying energy of live music: www.debonairmusichall.com. @DebonairMusicNJ on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

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