Reading of The Possesions of Mary Todd Lincoln Held At Solas Bar 10/24

The Harvardwood Actors' Program, in association with The American Repertory Theatre / Moscow Art Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University Alumni Association will present a reading of Beth McGee's The Possessions of Mary Todd Lincoln..

Monday October 24th
7:00 PM (reading will start at 7:15, please arrive a little early to grab a drink and find a seat)

Solas Bar
2nd floor seating area - no elevator access
232 E 9th St

Free admission, 1-2 drink purchase requested by the bar.
No reservations needed, seating is first come first serve on the upper level.

Mary Todd Lincoln "sets the record straight" about the details of her extraordinary life as a highly educated woman from a
prestigious Kentucky political family who married a man destined to be President of the United States. We follow episodes of Mary's life revealing the
scandals of her days, from her spendthrift compulsions, her severe mood swings and depressions, her addiction to opiates, her association with
spiritualists, and her relationships to her freed Black seamstress, Lizzy Keckley (who wrote a "tell-all book" about their life in the White House), and her eldest
son Robert, who attempted to commit her to an insane asylum after her husband's death. On the way, we meet some of the scoundrels and saviors with
whom she associated throughout her life.

MARY TODD LINCOLN - Nurit Monacelli *
MAN - Gardiner Comfort *
ELIZABETH KECKLY "LIZZY," - Chudney Sykes *
WOMAN - Rebecca West *
YOUNG MAN - Adam Kern *
Stage Directions - Anna Rahn *

All actors are members of Actors' Equity Association and alumni from The American Repertory Theatre / Moscow Art Theatre Institute at Harvard MFA program.

Beth McGee has been coaching voice and acting at Case Western Reserve University and directing productions at Eldred Theater since 1988. She received her vocal training from internationally known voice specialist Arthur Lessac and his master teachers, and trained in the Linklater voice technique at Shakespeare & Company (Lennox, Massachusetts) and with Kristin Linklater. She has studied Shakespearean text, voice, movement, and acting at Shakespeare & Company and with London's Royal National Theatre Studio. She has also studied Fitzmaurice voice technique with Catherine Fitzmaurice and the "International Phonetic Alphabet Pillows Technique" with Linklater Master Teacher Louis Colaianni. In 2007 she earned a Certificate for participating in over 300 hours of workshops at the Roy Hart Theater Centre Internationale in Maléragues, France, where she has also taught workshops with Roy Hart Master Teachers Ivan Midderigh and Marie Paule Marthe. She has conducted international voice workshops with the Theater Union of Russia in Moscow, and with Mexico City's Center for Voice, CEUVOZ, in Mexico. In 2009 and 2010 she conducted vocal workshops at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington D.C. for the KCACTF Irene Ryan finalists. In 2011 she was the Head Voice Coach for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, where she coached Romeo and Juliet, The Comedy of Errors, a bi-lingual production of The Inspector General, and was the dialect designer for The Little Prince.

Beth was president of the Voice and Speech Trainer's Association (VASTA) 2008-2010, during which time she presided over VASTA's national conference in New York City with featured presenters Catherine Fitzmaurice, Arthur Lessac, Kristin Linklater, and Patsy Rodenburg, and VASTA's third International Conference, presented in conjunction with CEUVOZ, in Mexico City.

McGee is a member of Actors' Equity Association and performs in Cleveland area productions. She also serves as a dialect coach for Cleveland area theaters. In 2001, McGee dialect coached the Warner Brothers film, "Welcome to Collinwood," produced by George Clooney and Stephen Soderbergh and directed by Emmy award winning directors Joe and Anthony Russo. In 1981 she recorded "Love is Teasing," a vinyl recording of folk songs released on the Folkway's Record label; it is now housed in the Smithsonian Museum Permanent Collection in Washington, D.C. McGee has had essays published in the Voice and Speech Review and won a New Playwright's Award for her one-woman show, Indian Territory. Professor McGee is a recipient of a Lilly Foundation Teaching Fellowship, a Case Ethics Fellowship, a UCITE Teaching and Learning Fellowship, and 2002-2008 she served as CWRU's first Faculty Diversity Officer for the Office of the President and Provost. She was a founding faculty member and professor in the CWRU College Scholars Program and a recipient of the CWRU President's Initiative Award for Interdisciplinary Learning.

PAST projects of the Harvardwood group include The Pilot Season Survival Guide, a series of short films, as well as readings of Marc Sulley's Last of the Navesink River Divers, Kate Mulley's screenplay Zandy, and coming up November 2nd a reading of Elana Zucker's screenplay The Weathergirl.

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