Manhattan Theatre Club is pleased to announce guests and dates for After Words, the popular discussion series at the Biltmore Theatre (261 West 47th Street). The series continues on Saturday, April 26 following the matinee performance of TOP GIRLS with director James Macdonald and Carol Gilligan, noted psychologist, professor, and novelist. The discussion will be moderated by David Shookhoff, MTC's Director of Education.
After Words is part of MTC's continuing effort to deepen and enrich the play-going experience for its audiences. Held after selected Saturday matinees at the Biltmore Theatre, this exciting series of talks with writers, cultural critics, journalists, and members of the TOP GIRLS cast and creative team provides provocative and illuminating insights into the political, cultural, and artistic contexts of the work MTC produces at the Biltmore Theatre.
On Saturday, May 3 After Words will feature Alisa Solomon, director of the Arts & Culture concentration at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and noted critic and journalist; TOP GIRLS cast members
Mary Catherine Garrison and
Jennifer Ikeda; and Lisa McNulty, MTC's Associate Director of Artistic Operations.
On Saturday, May 10 After Words will welcome Elin Diamond, professor of English at Rutgers University and co-editor of the upcoming Cambridge Companion to Caryl Churchill; TOP GIRLS cast members
Elizabeth Marvel and
Ana Reeder; and Lisa McNulty, MTC's Associate Director of Artistic Operations.
For more information on After Words, or to download a podcast of past After Words, please visit:
www.ManhattanTheatreClub.com.
CAROL GILLIGAN. Psychologist, professor, and novelist, Carol Gilligan was named by Time Magazine as one of the 25 most influential Americans. Harvard University Press describes her 1982 book, In a Different Voice, as "the little book that started a revolution." Her first novel Kyra published in January 2008 was reviewed in the San Francisco Chronicle as "… a rare thing: an engrossing, deeply emotional, thinking person's love story." Her 1992 co-authored book, Meeting at the Crossroads, was a New York Times Notable book of the year. In 2002, The Birth of Pleasure was praised by the Times Literary Supplement as a "thrilling, new paradigm" and characterized by National Public Radio as the work of a psychologist who writes like a novelist. As a member of the Harvard faculty, she held the university's first chair in gender studies. In 1997, she received the prestigious Heinz award for her contributions to understanding the human condition. Her most recent work includes a critically acclaimed play, coauthored with her son Jonathan and inspired by The Scarlet Letter. She has also co-authored a book with NYU law professor, David Richards, tentatively titled, Darkness Visible: loss, patriarchy, and democracy's future, to be published by Cambridge University Press next fall. She is currently a University Professor at New York University.
ALISA SOLOMON directs the Arts and Culture concentration at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. A long-time critic and journalist, she has written for such publications as the New York Times, The Nation, GuardianAmerica.com, WNYC, American Theater and the Village Voice, where she was on the staff for 21 years. Her book, Re-Dressing the Canon: Essays on Theater and Gender, won the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism. She is the co-editor (with
Tony Kushner) of Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
ELIN DIAMOND is Professor of English at Rutgers University. She is the author of Unmaking Mimesis: Essays on Feminism and Theater (Routledge, 1997) and Pinter's Comic Play (Bucknell 1985), and Editor of Performance and Cultural Politics (Routledge, 1996). Elin Diamond has been publishing essays on Caryl Churchill's plays since 1988; a chapter of Unmaking Mimesis is devoted to Churchill, and her most recent essay, published this year, is a reading of Caryl Churchill and Samuel Beckett. With Elaine Aston, Diamond is co-editing a Cambridge Companion to Caryl Churchill, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press.
INFORMATION ON TOP GIRLS
TOP GIRLS features
Mary Catherine Garrison (Rabbit Hole, Assassins), three-time Tony Awardâ nominee Mary Beth Hurt (A Delicate Balance, The World According to Garp),
Jennifer Ikeda (As You Like It), four-time Obie Award winner
Elizabeth Marvel (Seascape and An American Daughter on Broadway), Drama Desk Award winner
Martha Plimpton (Shining City at MTC, The Coast of Utopia),
Ana Reeder (No Country For Old Men, Sight Unseen), and Academy Award® winner
Marisa Tomei (My Cousin Vinny and In the Bedroom, seen on Broadway in Salomé) .
The play is directed by James Macdonald (Drunk Enough To Say I Love You?, A Number).
TOP GIRLS marks the Broadway debut of Caryl Churchill's groundbreaking work. At the
Top Girls Employment Agency in London in the early 1980s, Marlene has just been appointed head of the firm. But as this ambitious career woman celebrates her achievements, can we applaud her values? This bold and ingenious work from the singularly talented author of Far Away and Cloud Nine offers one of the theatre's most honest portraits of what it means to be a woman in the modern world.
The creative team for TOP GIRLS includes
Tom Pye (scenic design), Laura Bauer (costume design), Christopher Akerlind (lighting design), Darron L West (sound design), Matthew Herbert (original music),
Paul Huntley (hair and wig design) and Elizabeth Smith (dialect consultant).
Tickets to TOP GIRLS are available by calling Telecharge.com at (212) 239-6200, (800) 432-7250 outside the NY metro area, online at Telecharge.com, and at the Biltmore Theatre box office (261 West 47th Street, between Broadway and 8th Avenue). Tickets range in price from $46.50-$91.50. For group ticket information, call (800) 432-7780. Student rush tickets are available the day of the performance at the Biltmore Theatre box office for $26.50.
PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE:
* Tuesday, April 22 – Sunday, May 11: Tuesday through Saturday at 8 PM. Sunday at 7 PM. Matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2 PM.
* Tuesday, May 13 – Sunday, June 29: Tuesday through Saturday at 8 PM. Matinees Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday at 2 PM.
