New York City Arts in Education Roundtable to Host 'MOONSTRUCK MEETS STARSTRUCK' Benefit, 6/9

The New York City Arts in Education Roundtable will host MOONSTRUCK MEETS STARSTUCK: A FESTIVE BENEFIT FOR THE YOUNG AT ART on Monday, June 9th at 6:00 pm at the Park Avenue Armory (643 Park Avenue). This year's benefit will honor the artistry of John Patrick Shanley and support the Roundtable's programs for the hundreds of organizations and practitioners who bring arts education to the city's schools and communities.

The program will include remarks from Co-Chairs KATI KOERNER and Theodore Wiprud; toasts from LYNNE MEADOW, Artistic Director of Manhattan Theatre Club, and TERENCE P. MORAN, NYU professor and longtime friend and mentor of Shanley's; audition tales from New York Artists including Anna Rabinova, violinist from the NY Philharmonic, and Walter Blanding, saxophonist for Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra; as well as a special performance by the Talent Unlimited High School OF THE PERFORMING ARTS CHORALE SINGERS.

The 2014 Benefit committee includes NYC Comptroller Scott M. Stringer (Honorary Chair), David Auburn, Daniela Bedoni, Allison Blinken, Richard Kessler, Lynn Meadow, John Morning, and Ruth Nerken.

Established in 1992, The New York City Arts in Education Roundtable is a service organization and a community of arts education practitioners sharing information, providing professional development, and communicating with the public to promote innovate work in schools and beyond. The member-driven organization began as a grassroots effort to provide support and networking opportunities for the staff of arts education service providers, as well as to improve and advance the state of arts in education. In recent years, the Roundtable has increasingly provided programs specially designed for teaching artists, including job fairs, sessions on hiring practices, and forums for sharing best practices. The Roundtable currently has over 120 individual and organizational members, representing more than 750 arts educators in all five boroughs of New York City.

JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY is from The Bronx, New York. His plays include Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Savage in Limbo, Italian-American Reconciliation, Welcome to the Moon, Four Dogs and a Bone, The Dreamer Examines His Pillow, Dirty Story, Defiance, Beggars in the House of Plenty and Storefront Church. His theatrical work is performed extensively across the United States and around the world. For his play, Doubt, he received both the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In the arena of screenwriting, he has nine films to his credit, most recently Doubt, with Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams, which was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Adapted Screenplay. The film of Doubt was also directed by Mr. Shanley. Other films include Five Corners (Special Jury Prize, Barcelona Film Festival), Alive, Joe Versus the Volcano, which he also directed, and Live from Baghdad for HBO (Emmy nomination). For his script of Moonstruck he received both the Writers Guild of America Award and an Academy Award for best original screenplay. The Writers Guild of America awarded Mr. Shanley the 2009 Lifetime Achievement in Writing. In 1977, he graduated as valedictorian from the NYU Steinhardt School of Education, Culture, and Human Development with a degree in Educational Theatre.

For tickets to MOONSTRUCK MEETS STARSTRUCK and to support the New York City Arts in Education Roundtable, visit http://www.nycaieroundtable.org/index.php?section=events&evtid=75.