'Maudie & Jane' by Nattino Begins at Living Theatre Nov.30

The Living Theatre (19 Clinton St.) will present Maudie & Jane, written by Luciano Nattino, an adaptation of the Diary of Jane Summers, starring Judith Malina and Pat Russell, in which an old bag lady seduces a high-profile fashion editor into taking care of her. The production begins previews on November 30. Official Opening is on December 7.  Hanon Reznikov directs.

Luciano Nattino is the founder and director of one of Italy's most important experimental theater companies, La Casa degli Alfieri.  Since the early 1970's, Nattino and his group have created and toured dozens of plays that have changed the course of modern theater in Italy.

Hanon Reznikov was born in Brooklyn in 1950.  He first met The Living Theatre at their performances at Yale in 1968.  He soon joined the company and became director after the death of Julian Beck in 1985.  Judith Malina and he were married in 1988.  He has written many of the company's plays including The Money Tower, The Yellow Methuselah, The Body of God, Anarchia, Utopia, Capital Changes and Resistenza.  "Living/Reznikov: Four Plays of The Living Theatre is in print and Living on Third Street," the chronicle of the company's first sojourn on the Lower East Side of Manhattan is due out next spring.

Judith Malina was born in 1926 in Kiel, Germany.  In 1947, after studying acting and directing at the Dramatic Workshop at the New School with Erwin Piscator, she and Julian Beck founded The Living Theatre as an artistic challenge to the commercial theater, producing nearly 100 productions including The Connection, The Brig, Frankenstein, Antigone, Paradise Now, Seven Meditations on Political Sado-Masochism, I and I and Resistenza.  Her literary output incudes the plays Paradise Now, Mysteries and smaller pieces and The Legacy of Cain, collections of her diaries including The Diaries of Judith Malina 1947-1957, and The Enormous Despair as well as two collections of poetry, Poems of a Wandering Jewess and Love and Politics.  She has also appeared often in films and television, including Dog Day Afternoon, China Girl, The Addams Family, Household Saints, Enemies: A Love Story, The Deli, Nothing Ever Happens and guest appearances on ER, Miami Vice, The Street and The Sopranos.

Here and abroad, Pat Russell's writing, performing and directing talents have anchored many collective creations with ensembles such as The Living Theater, The Irondale Ensemble Project, The Alchemical Theater and The Loretta Auditorium.  She has performed in world premiers of theater works by authors Michael McClure, Eric Bentley and Jessica Slote as well as an American premier of Walter Hasenclever's Humanity.  Recently she has been involving herself in the world of independent films.   This year, among others, in Butterfly Screams a film by Pakistani-American artist Mumtaz, in 2003 at the "Views from the Avant Guard Series – New York Film Festival" in Jeanne Liotta's Loretta, and prior to that in Quiz Show.

The Assistant Director is Brad Burgess. Set & Lighting Designer is Gary Brackett, and music is by Patrick Grant.

Performances are on Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8PM; Sundays at 4PM. Tickets are $20. Students pay $10.  Wednesday is "Pay What You Can" night and seating is on a first come first serve basis. For further information, visit www.livingtheatre.org. NOTE: This production contains nudity.

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