Tony Kushner, Charles Busch, and More Join THE PATSY Talkbacks

Transport Group has announced that it will host a talkback series following upcoming performances of its acclaimed production of The Patsy. Guests include playwrights Tony Kushner and Charles Busch and creator of "Be Kind Rewind" Isabel Custodio.

The schedule is:

Wednesday, April 20

Participants: Charles Busch, David Greenspan, Jack Cummings III

Thursday, April 21

Participants: Isabel Custodio, David Greenspan, Jack Cummings III, production dramaturg Krista Williams

Friday, April 29

Participants: Tony Kushner, David Greenspan, Jack Cummings III

The Patsy, written by Barry Conners, performed by David Greenspan, and directed by Jack Cummings III, opened April 10 at Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand Street.

Filled with familial intrigue, marital sparring, lovers in pursuit, country club scandals, and labors of the heart, The Patsy premiered on Broadway in 1925 becoming an instant success. The hit play was then immediately immortalized in film by a quartet of early 20th century luminaries-stars Marion Davies and Marie Dressler, director King Vidor, and producer William Randolph Hearst.

In 2011 six-time Obie Award winner David Greenspan, along with Transport Group Artistic Director and two-time Obie Award winner Jack Cummings III, put their own spin on the feisty drawing room comedy by giving all eight roles to Greenspan. Now Greenspan and Transport Group resurrect this Cinderella story of a girl a little less beautiful, a little less loved, and her fractious, gossipy family, which explores a family's aspirations of wealth, status, and love in pre-depression America.

The 2011 production of The Patsy was nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Solo Performance as well as an Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best Special Event and was hailed by critics.

Tony Kushner's plays include A Bright Room Called Day; Angels in America, Parts One and Two; Slavs!; Homebody/Kabul; the musical Caroline, or Change and the opera A Blizzard on Marblehead Neck, both with composer Jeanine Tesori; and The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide To Capitalism And Socialism With A Key To The Scriptures. He has adapted Pierre Corneille's The Illusion, S.Y. Ansky's The Dybbuk, Bertolt Brecht's The Good Person of Szechwan and Mother Courage and Her Children; and the English-language libretto for the opera Brundibár by Hans Krasa. He wrote the screenplay for Mike Nichols's film of Angels In America; the screenplays for Steven Spielberg's films Munich, Lincoln, and West Side Story; and The Fabelmans, co-written and directed by Steven Spielberg, to be released in November 2022. His books include Brundibar, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak; The Art of Maurice Sendak, 1980 to the Present; and Wrestling With Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict, co-edited with Alisa Solomon. Kushner is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards, two Evening Standard Awards, an Olivier Award, an Emmy Award, two Oscar nominations, and the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, among other honors. In 2012, he was awarded a National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama. He lives in Manhattan with his husband, Mark Harris.

Charles Busch is the author and star of such plays as The Divine Sister, The Confession of Lily Dare, Vampire Lesbians of Sodom (one of the longest running plays in the history of Off-Broadway) and The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, which ran for nearly two years on Broadway and received a Tony nomination for Best Play. He wrote and starred in the film versions of his plays, Psycho Beach Party and Die Mommie Die, the latter of which won him the Best Performance Award at the Sundance Film Festival. Mr. Busch is a recipient of a Special Drama Desk Award for career achievement as both performer and playwright and the Dramatists' Guild has honored him with The Flora Roberts Award for Sustained Commitment to the Theatre. Charlesbusch.com

Isabel Custodio is the writer, narrator, and editor of "Be Kind Rewind," a YouTube channel focused on Hollywood history and the women who make it fascinating. Since creating the channel in 2018, she has received over 23 million views on videos covering topics such as inequality at the Academy Awards, the feud between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, and the stalled film career of Tallulah Bankhead. Her work has been featured in W Magazine, on RogerEbert.com, and was nominated for a Shorty Award for Best Educational Channel.

Transport Group (Jack Cummings III, artistic director; Denise Dickens, executive director) is an off-Broadway theatre company whose work has been called "storytelling at its purest" by The New York Times, "at once faithful and irreverent." Since the company was founded in 2001 by Jack Cummings III and Robyn Hussa, Transport Group has produced 33 shows: 17 new works and 16 revivals, including three New York premieres and six commissioned works. The company has received a special New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, three Drama Desk Awards including a special one "for its breadth of vision and its presentation of challenging productions," nine Obie Awards, an Outer Critics Circle Award, three Off-Broadway Alliance Awards, and a Dramatists Guild Award. In addition, Transport Group's productions have received 46 Drama Desk Award nominations, eight Drama League Award nominations, four Lucille Lortel Award nominations, six Outer Critics Circle Award nominations, nine American Theatre Wing Design Award nominations, nine Off-Broadway Alliance Award nominations, four Audelco Award nominations, and a Tony Award nomination.

The Patsy, which has a running time of 80 minutes, plays Wednesday, March 30 - Saturday, April 30 at Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand Street (F to Delancey Street; J or M to Essex Street; D or B to Grand Street), as part of the @Abrons Series. The regular performance schedule is Tuesday through Saturday at 7pm; Saturday and Sunday at 3pm. Tickets prices start at $55 and may be purchased by visiting transportgroup.org or by phoning 866-811-4111. For more information and exact performance schedule, visit transportgroup.org. You may follow Transport Group on Instagram and Twitter @TransportGrp and Facebook at @TransportGroup.

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