Westport Country Playhouse to Host Symposium with Playwright David Ives

Tony Award-nominated playwright David Ives will be the guest at Westport Country Playhouse's Sunday Symposium following a 3 p.m. performance of his comedy, "The Liar," on Sunday, May 10. Ives will discuss his adaptation of "The Liar" from the comedy by Pierre Corneille, about a man who weaves an increasingly intricate web of lies leading to hilarious romantic misadventures.

Ives's play "Lives of the Saints" was a hit off-Broadway this spring at Primary Stages while his play "The Metromaniacs" was a hit at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington. Ives is perhaps best known for his evening of one-act plays, "All in the Timing" (he has been included in the "Best Short Plays" series seven times), and for his drama "Venus in Fur," which was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play in 2012 and turned into a movie by Roman Polanski. Other plays include "New Jerusalem: The Interrogation of Baruch De Spinoza," "The School for Lies" (adapted from Molière's "The Misanthrope"), and "Is He Dead?" (adapted from Mark Twain). Ives is a former Guggenheim Fellow in playwriting and a graduate of The Yale School of Drama.

New this year, U.S. Trust will sponsor the Playhouse's Sunday Symposium Series for all five of the 2015 Season plays from May through October.

"U.S. Trust has been a proud sponsor of the Westport Country Playhouse since 1999, and we are honored to carry on that tradition in Connecticut," said Robert Pizzella, U.S. Trust Market Executive for Connecticut, and recently elected member of the Playhouse board of trustees. "This year, through our support, the symposia will be videotaped for online viewing via the Playhouse website, so that others in the community can share the experience."

Together with Bank of America, U.S. Trust will co-sponsor "The Liar," the first production of the 2015 Playhouse season. In addition, U.S. Trust will serve as a corporate sponsor of the theater's annual gala in September.

The Sunday Symposium Series is moderated by David Kennedy, Playhouse associate artistic director. Free and open to the public, the Sunday Symposium provides the audience with guest speakers' in-depth insights and observations about the production, followed by an interactive dialogue. The Series is supported, in part, by the White Barn Program of the Lucille Lortel Foundation.

"The Liar" takes the Playhouse stage from May 5 through May 23, directed by Penny Metropulos. In addition to Bank of America's Corporate Sponsorship of "The Liar," Production Sponsors are Judy and Scott Phares.

For more information and to buy tickets, visit www.westportplayhouse.or or call the box office at (203) 227-4177, toll-free at 1-888-927-7529, or visit Westport Country Playhouse, 25 Powers Court, off Route 1, Westport.

Photo by Walter Kurtz

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