Saint, Hayden Star In Staged Reading Of ON THE DIVIDE 5/16 At Poway

The 2008/2009 POW! Professional Performance season concludes in May 16, 2009 with a rare live appearance by the peerless screen legend Eva Marie Saint (On the Waterfront, Raintree County, North by Northwest, etc.). Appearing in a staged reading of On the Divide, Ms. Saint will light up the Poway stage with a soul stirring evocation of life on the American prairie described in the path breaking fiction of Willa Cather (My Antonia, O Pioneers, Song of the Lark). Co-staring with her is her producer/director/director Jeffrey Hayden. Tickets, including deeply discounted youth tickets, are on sale now.

On the Divide is directed by Mr. Hayden (Magnum P.I., Cagney and Lacy, Heat of the Night) plus 450 other network TV show and plays. Mr. Hayden helmed a distinguished production of Albert Uhry's Driving Miss Daisy for POW! two seasons ago.

"All the while Cather is describing life's terrors, she never stops asserting its beauties: the dome of heaven, the flaming sun. The dream is still there; we just can't have it." - Joan Acocella, The New Yorker

Eva Marie Saint is a motion picture, stage and television star without peer. Among her triumphs are the films On The Waterfront, North by Northwest, Raintree County, Exodus, The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!, All Fall Down, 36 Hours, The Stalking Moon, Grand Prix and Loving. The names of her leading men read like a galaxy: Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, Henry Fonda, Gregory Peck, Warren Beatty, Richard Burton, Burt Lancaster and Cary Grant.

She attended Bowling Green State University in Ohio, with the intention of becoming a school teacher. Thankfully, she changed her major to Theater Arts and the University has since dedicated the theater on campus in her name. She received a B.A. degree and an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts Degree from BGSU.

Ms. Saint studied at the Actors Studio in New York and began her work in "live" television and theatre. Elia Kazan saw her in A Trip to Bountiful on Broadway and cast her in On The Waterfront - for which she won an Academy Award. She appeared in the following plays on Broadway, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles: Summer and Smoke, Desire Under the Elms, Candida, The Rainmaker, Winesburg, Ohio; Duet for One, The Lincoln Mask, First Monday in October, The Fatal Weakness, Country Girl (for which she received the LA Dramalogue Award) and Death of a Salesman.

In television, she was nominated five times for an Emmy: the musical version of Our Town, with Frank Sinatra and Paul Newman, Middle of the Night by Paddy Chayevsky, Hallmark Hall of Fame's Taxi with Martin Sheen and How The West Was Won. She won the Emmy for the mini-series People Like Us on NBC. Other TV triumphs include: The Trip to Bountiful with Lillian Gish, Fatal Vision with Karl Malden, When Hell Was in Session with Hal Holbrook, Last Days of Patton with George C. Scott, Achille-Lauro Affair with Burt Lancaster, Time to Say Goodbye with Richard Kiley and My Antonia with Jason Robards.

Her more recent films include: I Dreamed of Africa, Because of Winn-Dixie, Don't Come Knocking and Superman Returns.

Married to Jeffrey Hayden for 57 years, this husband and wife team has collaborated on many theatrical projects. They have been performing together in Love Letters and On the Divide in theatres across America. They have two children and three grandchildren and consider them their happiest achievement.

Jeffrey Hayden is a producer/director whose credits include many of television's most successful comedies such as LEAVE IT TO BEAVER, THE DONNA REED SHOW, and THE Andy Griffith SHOW.

He began work at NBC after graduation from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and later he joined ABC Television as an Associate Director. Two years after that, he directed the first color specials for NBC Television, LADY IN THE DARK, starring Ann Sothern and THE CHOCOLATE SOLDIER with Eddie Albert. He then directed his wife, Eva Marie Saint, and Richard Kiley in the prestigious OMNIBUS series. In 1954 he was chosen by Fred Coe to join the staff of THE PHILCO TELEVISION PLAYHOUSE where he directed live television dramas with such stars as James Dean, Walter Matthau, and Paul Newman. His wofk attracted the attention of several Hollywood studios and he left New York to direct a film for Dore Schary at MGM, THE VINTAGE, starring Michele Morgan and Pier Angeli. His credits also include THE Dick Powell THEATRE, 77 SUNSET STRIP, NAME OF THE GAME, ROUTE 66, MANNIX, PEYTON PLACE, and ALIAS SMITH & JONES.

In the 1980s Mr. Hayden directed segments of many television series: IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, MAGNUM, P.I., CAGNEY & LACEY, THE INCREDIBLE HULK, QUINCY, for which he won the Governor's Media Award, and PALMERSTOWN, USA, earning him a NAACP League Award. Always drawn to the theatre, he won acclaim for his direction of such stage works as THE FRONT PAGE (Cleveland Playhouse), SUMMER AND SMOKE and DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS (Kennedy Center), CANDIDA, THE FATAL WEAKNESS (Boston), and DUET FOR ONE (New York). In Los Angeles, he produced/directed AWAKE AND SING, THE OLDEST LIVING GRADUATE, DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS (winning a Drama-Logue Award), WINESBURG, OHIO; THE COUNTRY GIRL (another Drama-Logue Award), and at the Playmakers Rep Theatre, Chapel Hill, DEATH OF A SALESMAN, starring Judd Hirsch and Eva Marie Saint.

He also wrote, produced and directed the award-winning documentary PRIMARY COLORS: THE STORY OF CORITA for the PBS network and the Emmy Award winning CHILDREN IN AMERICAN SCHOOLS with Bill Moyers, also for PBS. Mr. Hayden was awarded an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Bowling Green State University, Ohio, and from the University of South Carolina and has been a Distinguished Professor in Theatre Arts at the University of North Carolina and Guest Lecturer at the USC Film School and Vanderbilt University, and at the Actors Studio in Hollywood.

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