LOVE N' COURAGE Benefit With Elaine Stritch, Tammy Grimes & More Set for 2/13

The Pulitzer Prize and Obie Award-winning Theatre for the New City (TNC) will hold its 9th Annual LOVE N' COURAGE benefit gala on Monday, February 13 at the National Arts Club (15 Gramercy Park South in Manhattan), this year honoring legendary centenarian writer Bel Kaufman, author of "Up the Down Staircase," it has been announced by Crystal Field, co-founder and artistic director of Theater for the City. The LOVE N' COURAGE celebration will begin with cocktails at 6:30pm, Dinner at 7:00pm, and performances at 8:00pm.

Proceeds benefit the Emerging Playwrights' Program at Theater for the New City, located at 155 First Avenue in the East Village, where it remains one of the few remaining outposts for experimental and political theater in 21st century New York.

Hosts for the evening are composer and singer Phoebe Legere and playwright and filmmaker Matt Morillo ("Maid of Honor").

Among the performers at LOVE N' COURAGE are Elaine Stritch (Elaine Stritch AT LIBERTY); Tammy Grimes (THE UNSINKABLE Molly Brown, PRIVATE LIVES); actress and singer/songwriter Louisa Bradshaw; actor Michael-David Gordon; Grandson of Yip Harburg, Ben Harburg, and Broadway Friends, Jennifer Babiak and Eric Poindexter; and dancer troupes including COBU Japanese Women's Drum and Dance and Thunderbird American Indian Dancers.

Bel Kaufman, who turned 100 last May, will be honored at LOVE N' COURAGE for her work as a teacher and celebrated author. Ms. Kaufman began work as a teacher in various New York City high schools and worked part-time as a journalist for Esquire. In 1965, her novel "Up the Down Staircase," based on her teaching experiences, was published and became a hit, topping the New York Times Bestseller list for 64 weeks. It was later adapted into a film. She continued as a teacher and lecturer and completed her second novel "Love, etc." in 1979. Last year, Ms. Kaufman became the oldest known working professor when she was hired by her alma mater Hunter College to teach a course on Jewish humor.

Celebrating its 40th year, Theatre for the New City is a long-running bastion for new theatrical works. While talented emerging playwrights often find themselves competing for funding with more established writers; Theater for the New City's mission is to offer "love and encouragement" to these struggling artists with its Emerging Playwrights Program, established in 1971. Theater for the New City is a Pulitzer Prize winning community cultural center known for its high artistic standards and community service. One of New York's most prolific theatrical organizations, TNC produces 30-40 premieres of new American plays per year, at least 10 of which are by emerging and young playwrights. Many influential theater artists of the last quarter century have found TNC's Resident Theater Program instrumental to their careers, among them Sam Shepard, Moises Kaufman, Richard Foreman, Charles Busch, Maria Irene Fornes, Miguel Piñero and Academy Award Winners Tim Robbins and Adrien Brody.

"Emerging playwrights are writers of great promise who have yet to fulfill their artistic goals, but whose visions are high," explains Crystal Field, whose Emerging Playwrights Program takes in fledgling and untried writers, offering a nurturing environment where new authors can flourish, and often realize their first fully produced work at Theater for the New City. Ms. Field notes that "love and courage are what a playwright needs to thrive in this field, and 'love and encourage' is what Theater for the New City does!"

Through the Emerging Playwrights Program, up-and-coming writers meet and have access to experienced designers, directors and performers. The emerging playwright is surrounded by dedicated professionals in an atmosphere of supportive collaboration. Theater for the New City has an open-door policy towards new work -- considering plays of any style, genre and political thrust -- and reading every script submitted. The company also produces and commissions plays by some of the better-known American Playwrights such as Maria Irene Fornes, Matt Morillo, Sam Shepard, Eduardo Machado and Charles Busch.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Theater for the New City is committed to developing and nurturing creative talent in the New York City area. Other programs sponsored by the Theater include the Resident Theater Program, Arts-in-Education Program, Summer Street Theater Tour, the Lower East Side Festival of the Arts, the Village Halloween Costume Ball and, most recently, the Dream Up Festival of New Plays. The Emerging Playwrights Program was founded in 1984 as part of the Resident Theater Program, and seeks to create a space where theater artists have room to develop new visions, free of commercial restraint and pressure. Past productions have included works that include song, dance, music, puppetry, poetry, and epic styles of drama, and have garnered 43 Obie Awards

Tickets to LOVE N' COURAGE on Monday, February 13 at the National Arts Club (15 Gramercy Park South, between Irving Place/Park Avenue), are $135. For reservations and additional information, please call 212-254-1109 or visit www.theaterforthenewcity.net