Morgan Freeman and Dana Ivey to Lead Benefit Reading of DRIVING MISS DAISY

The Acting Company presents a one-night-only benefit reading of Driving Miss Daisy, the beloved play by Alfred Uhry, at The Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College (68th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues), on Monday, November 11 at 7:00 PM. The performance reunites Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman and five-time Tony Award nominee Dana Ivey, who created the iconic roles of Hoke Colburn and Daisy Werthan in the original 1987 production Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons. Tony Award winner Walter Bobbie(Chicago) will direct, in addition to reprising the role of Boolie, which he understudied in that production.

Alfred Uhry's play set Freeman and Ivey on their paths toward stardom and led to the celebrated 1989 film adaptation for which Freeman won a Golden Globe Award. The play was a sensation in its original run of nearly 1200 performances, garnering the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, three Outer Critics Circle Awards and an Obie Award win for Ivey. The film was honored with four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and a Best Adapted Screenplay nod for Uhry.

Uhry's classic play is a timeless, searing, funny, and ultimately hopeful meditation on race relations in America, told through the complex relationship between two of popular culture's most enduring characters. When Daisy Werthan, a widowed, 72-year-old Jewish woman living in midcentury Atlanta, is deemed too old to drive, her son hires Hoke Colburn, an African American man, to serve as her chauffeur. What begins as a troubled and hostile pairing soon blossoms into a profound, life-altering friendship that transcends all the societal boundaries placed between them. Their iconic tale of pride, changing times and the transformative power of friendship has become one of our most beloved American stories.

The reading of Driving Miss Daisy takes place Monday, November 11 at 7:00 PM. Performance-only tickets priced from $75-$195 are available starting at 12:00 PM on Friday, October 4th exclusively through the Kaye Playhouse box office by calling (212) 772-4448 or online at: www.hunter.cuny.edu/kayeplayhouse/calendar.

Premium benefit tickets including prime orchestra seating and an intimate post-show dinner with the cast are $1,000 each, available now by calling The Acting Company's administrative offices at (212) 258-3111 or online at www.theactingcompany.org.

Photo Credit: Nigel Parry