Williamstown Theatre Fest Announces Special Events Featuring Katrina Lenk, Tovah Feldshuh and More

Williamstown Theatre Festival has announced two special events for the 2019 season as well as additional casting for the Nikos Stage and Fridays@3.

To mark the 60th anniversary of the Broadway opening of A Raisin in the Sun, the 2019 Williamstown Theatre Festival season will include a special public conversation: Lorraine Hansberry - A Living Legacy / New Artists and New Visions, featuring Hansberry Literary Executor, Joi Gresham, Hansberry biographer Soyica Colbert author of the forthcoming Lorraine Hansberry: ARTIST/ACTIVIST (Yale University Press, 2019), and playwrights Talvin Wilks and Tracey Scott Wilson. Participants will explore the persistent resonance of Lorraine Hansberry's signature work, A Raisin in the Sun, sixty years after its Broadway premiere and speak to how the writer, artist, intellectual, and activist has influenced their own creative works and identities as artists-activists. This free event will take place on Wednesday, July 10th at 10am at the Clark Auditorium (225 South Street). Reservations are required.

The 2019 season will also include a special reading of The Soap Myth by Jeff Cohen, directed by Pam Berlin, and starring 7-time Emmy Award winner Ed Asner ("The Mary Tyler Moore Show") and 2-time Emmy and 4-time Tony Award nominee Tovah Feldshuh (Golda's Balcony). It will be followed by a talkback with the playwright and cast, as well as Williams College professor and author of Living with Hate in American Politics and Religion, Jeffrey Israel. Holocaust survivor Milton Saltzman (Ed Asner) implores historians and journalists alike to record the specific Nazi atrocities he witnessed. In the face of a Holocaust denier (Tovah Feldshuh) and complicated journalistic practices, Milton will not relent in his quest to ensure the world reckons with the truth. The Soap Mythexplores what it means to be a survivor and who has the right to write history. This event will take place on Monday, July 22nd at 7pm on the Main Stage. Tickets are $15 and proceeds benefit the Williamstown Theatre Festival Professional Training Program.

Joining the previously announced Nikos Stage casts is: Nicole Villamil (Network, The Rose Tattoo at WTF) in Tell Me I'm Not Crazy (July 24 - August 3), replacing the previously announced Nadine Malouf who had to withdraw due to a scheduling conflict.

Casting for Fridays@3, a weekly new play reading series that is open to the public, will include Mia Barron, Richard Chamberlain, Katrina Lenk, and Tom McGowan in For Nina (July 12), Kate Bornstein, Samy el-Noury, Dana Levinson, Shakina Nayfack, and Ianne Fields Stewart in Chonburi International Hotel & Butterfly Club (July 26), and Michele Pawk joins previously announced André Braugher in Tell Them I'm Still Young (July 5).

The WTF Box Office is now open. Tickets may be purchased online at www.wtfestival.org, by phone, or in person at the '62 Center for Theatre and Dance Box Office at 1000 Main St (Route 2), Williamstown, MA 01267. The WTF Box Office phone number is 413.458.3253.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos