A TIME TO KILL's Tom Skerritt Set for Q&A at WSU's Hilberry Theatre, 4/22

Hollywood actor Tom Skerritt is coming back to where his remarkable 50-year career began. The Maggie Allesee Department of Theatre and Dance presents "A Conversation with Apple Award Recipient Tom Skerritt" at the Hilberry Theatre on April 22 at 5:30 p.m. Skerritt will appear in an "actors studio" style interview and question-and-answer session.

Tickets are $20 and may be purchased at wsushows.com, at (313) 577-2972 or at the box office.

The Wayne State University Department of Theatre and Dance welcomes native Detroiter and former Wayne State University student, Tom Skerritt, back to the campus where he paved the path for his incredible career in television and film. He has appeared in over 40 films and 200 television episodes since 1962. Mr. Skerritt is best known for his work in MASH, Alien, Top Gun, A River Runs Through It and the television series' Picket Fences and Cheers.

After serving in the Air Force, Tom Skerritt attended Wayne State University and later UCLA for filmmaking and directing. His first professional acting job was in 1962's War Hunt with Robert Redford and Sydney Pollock. His directing mentor, Robert Altman, cast him in 1970's M*A*S*H. He has upwards of 150 acting credits and is well known for Alien, Top Gun and A River Runs Through It," and the TV series' Cheers and Picket Fences, for which he won a 1994 Emmy. Mr. Skerritt has appeared on Broadway in A Time To Kill and has also appeared on stage in Seattle, OR at the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Don Quixote and at the Intiman Theatre in Our Town. He also received WSU's Arts Achievement Award in 2007.

The Apple Award, named for Sarah Applebaum Nederlander, is given by the Maggie Allesee Department of Theatre and Dance at Wayne State University on behalf of the Nederlander family. In 2001, the Nederlander family formed a partnership with the College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts at Wayne State University, establishing the Sarah Applebaum Nederlander Award for Excellence in Theatre; an annual theatre award and visiting artist fund in their mother's name. The Apple Award brings a nationally prominent theatre professional to Detroit and the Wayne State University campus as a guest lecturer to interact with and educate the rising stars of the Department of Theatre and Dance through master classes and a question-and-answer style forum. Previous Apple Award winners include Neil Simon, Carol Channing, David Stone, Stephen Schwartz, Mandy Patinkin, Patti Lupone, Marvin Hamlisch, and Elaine Stritch.

About Theatre & Dance at Wayne: Wayne State University's Maggie Allesee Department of Theatre and Dance serves nearly 300 students as a nexus of performance, production, management, and research. It provides a wide choice of degree programs that allow students the flexibility to study these disciplines broadly or to concentrate more specifically. The dance program is one of the longest-running in the U.S., tracing its beginning to Ruth Lovell Murray's founding of the Dance Workshop in 1928. The theatre program is internationally recognized as a training ground for theatre professionals. The Hilberry Theatre is the nation's longest-running graduate repertory company. The two programs are accredited by the National Association of Schools of Theatre and the National Association of Schools of Dance, respectively.

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