Photos: BALDWIN & BUCKLEY Celebrate Opening Night

The Public Theater and Elevator Repair Service opened the New York premiere production of Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge in the Anspacher Theater. The production was conceived by Greig Sargeant with Elevator Repair Service and is directed by Elevator Repair Service (ERS)'s Artistic Director John Collins. Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge has also extended and will now run through Sunday, October 23.

In 1965, two of America's intellectual giants were invited to debate whether "the American Dream is at the expense of the American Negro," bringing into sharp focus our country's deepest divisions. The renowned theater company Elevator Repair Service returns to The Public with Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge, a profoundly relevant presentation of the legendary debate between virtuosic writer James Baldwin and father of American conservatism William F. Buckley, Jr. The production concludes with an imagined scene between Baldwin and his close friend Lorraine Hansberry, researched and written by long-time ERS company members April Matthis and Greig Sargeant. Heralded by the New York Times as "one of the city's few truly essential theater companies," Elevator Repair Service applies their trademark approach of verbatim textual exploration and intensive collaboration to re-create Baldwin and Buckley's blistering dissection of race, racism, and human worth.

Photo Credit: Genevieve Rafter Keddy