Patricia Leonard Presents Arthur Miller Reading Featuring Joan Copeland

In celebration of great American playwright Arthur Miller's centennial, Patricia Leonard will present acclaimed actress Joan Copeland in a rare reading of her brother's short story The Performance. The private industry reading will take place at Manhattan Theatre Club's Creative Center on Monday, February 1 at 7PM. The Performance is part of a collection of short works from Miller's Presence: Stories (2008).

This tale centers on the Jewish head of an American tapdancing troupe in Berlin just before World War II, as he is invited to perform in front of Hitler himself! Actress Joan Copeland won a Drama Desk Award in 1981 for playing a role based on their own mother in Arthur Miller's The American Clock, and a Drama Desk nomination for her much lauded performance as Vera Simpson in the 1977 Broadway revival of Rodgers & Hart's Pal Joey.

A founding member of The Actors Studio, she made her Broadway debut in Bessie Breuer's Sundown Beach, followed by such shows as Detective Story, Tovarich, The Price, Coco, Two By Two, Checking Out, Wit & Wisdom, and The American Plan. Ms. Copeland's films include The Goddess, Middle of the Night, Roseland, and she was the voice of The Wise Woman in Disney's Brother Bear. Her television appearances span the decades, from the live telecast of Eugene O'Neil's The Iceman Cometh to Law & Order, and she created iconic roles in soap operas including Edge of Night, Search for Tomorrow and One Life to Live.

Joan Copeland Reads Arthur Miller's "The Performance" 2016 marks the Centennial year for legendary playwright Arthur Miller, who was born in New York City in 1915. Currently represented on Broadway with the acclaimed revival of A View from the Bridge, he received an Oscar nomination for the screen adaptation of his play The Crucible, an Emmy Award for the TV version of Death of a Salesman, and a Tony Award as Best Author for the original Broadway production of Death of a Salesman, which also received the Tony Award for Best Play, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and The Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

The first play to win all three major awards. His other works All My Sons, A Memory of Two Mondays, After the Fall, Incident at Vichy, The Price, The American Clock (written for and starring his younger sister, Joan Copeland), the screenplay for The Misfits starring his then-wife Marilyn Monroe, his autobiographical books "Timebends: A Life" and "Salesman in Beijing".