Razors Edge Productions and the New York Society Library presented an evening of plays by Joyce Carol Oates on Tuesday, October 13. Ms. Oates participated in an audience discussion afterwards. Bill Connington's collaboration with Joyce Carol Oates started with ZOMBIE, an award winning solo play he adapted from Oates' novella. Connington performed the show for a successful extended run on Theatre Row earlier this year. Another evening of Oates' short plays will be performed Tuesday, October 20 at 6:30 pm at the New York Society Library, 53 East 79th Street (just east of Madison Avenue, 6 train to 77th Street). Audience discussions will take place after performances.
Though most famous for her fiction, Oates is also a prolific and widely produced writer of drama, with past productions by The Actors Studio in Stockholm, ACT Theatre, in Seattle, the Edinburgh Festival, L.A. Theatre Works, Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York, the Long Wharf in New Haven, and the McCarter Theater in Princeton, among others. She was co-winner of the Heideman Award for a work produced at The Actors Theatre of Louisville, and nominated for an American Theatre Critics Award.
In these events, acclaimed actor/playwright
Bill Connington and a cast of Broadway and Off-Broadway actors will bring to life some of Oates' short plays, including Homesick, The Adoption, Poor Bibi, and No Next of Kin. Each text displays the combination of psychological insight, sense of America, and love of language that have made Oates' books modern classics.
The cast includes
Bill Connington (ZOMBIE), Robert DuSolt (The Producers)
Michael Laurence (Krapp, 39),
Sherry Anderson (Beauty and the Beast),
Jennifer McCabe (Sex & The City),
Emily Tremaine (Summer Shorts) Anne
Marie Benedict (Robeson), Jeff Pagliano (Richard III), Colin Sutherland (Birdbath), and
Tony Wolf (Fullabill.com).
Joyce Carol Oates has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys and Blonde (a finalist for the National Book Award), and the New York Times bestsellers The Falls (winner of the 2005 Prix Femina) and The Gravedigger's Daughter. She has received a PEN/Malamud Award for Achievement in the Short Story, the National Book Award, and
The Common Wealth Award for Distinguished Service in Literature. A nominee for the Pulitzer Prize, she has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.
Bill Connington was the creator and star of the Off-Broadway extended-run, critically lauded show Zombie. Zombie was adapted from the novella by
Joyce Carol Oates and directed by
Thomas Caruso. Connington was named Best Lead Actor (Offoffoff Fringe) and Outstanding Male Actor (Talkin' Broadway). Zombie was awarded Outstanding Solo Show by FringeNYC. Critic Patrick Lee named Connington's performance one of the most outstanding of the year. Anita Gates wrote in the New York Times, "Shocking...a chilling one-man study of perversity...Mr. Connington commits totally to this haunting characterization and leaves us wondering exactly what kind of people are walking the streets alongside us." Connington has written a short film version of Zombie, which is slated to be filmed in the winter of 2010. www.zombietheplay.com.
Razors Edge Productions is dedicated to producing exciting new work. It looks for writing that is challenging, provocative and thought-provoking. The audience is asked to question their own assumptions, and grow in their understanding of human nature. In its first production, Zombie, was an adaption of the novella by the acclaimed author
Joyce Carol Oates. Soon it will begin a new play reading series, Theater from
The Edge.
The New York Society Library was founded in 1754, and is the city's oldest library. In the eighteenth century, an organization labeled "Society" meant that it was open to all--availabile to everyone throughout society. The library is open to all for reading, reference, and selected events, with circulation and other services by subscription.
The beautiful landmarked building dates from 1917, and includes reading rooms, spaces for study, stacks, and an exhibition gallery. The library has approximately 275,000 volumes., and hosts a variety of special events, reading groups, workshops, as well as the New York City Book Awards.
Information on the Library and its history can be found at www.nysoclib.org.
Pictured above: Bill Connington, performer, Joyce Carol Oates, playwright.
