Theatre for a New Audience's OPEN BOOK SERIES to Begin with Kenneth Gross, Today

Theatre for a New Audience, whose vision is based on its core commitment to ideas, to language, and to artists and audiences, has scheduled the first three of its new Open Books Series of free lectures beginning Thursday, April 25, at 6:00pm with Kenneth Gross, author of Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life (University of Chicago Press, 2011), and continuing with Penelope Niven, author of Thornton Wilder: A Life (Harper, 2012) Tuesday, May 21,at 5:00pm and Jonathan Kalb, author of Great Lengths: Seven Works of Marathon Theater (University of Michigan Press, 2011), Thursday, May 30, at 6:00pm.

The Open Books series feature the critical and scholarly voices behind some of the best new books about theatre. All three lectures, curated by the Theatre's Literary Advisor Jonathan Kalb, are presented free by Theatre for a New Audience at The Drama Bookshop, 250 W 40th Street.

"Open Books is a new series designed to engage its communities­artistic, public and academic­in an ongoing dialogue about theatre, illuminated through the lenses of history, society, language, and art," said Jeffrey Horowitz, Founding Artistic Director of Theatre for a New Audience. "By providing these talks to the general public for free, the Theatre is providing access to the critical and scholarly voices behind some of the best books newly published in the theatre field."

As its name suggests, Theatre for a New Audience seeks to create new perspectives and insights, new approaches and interpretations, new responses to dramatic content, and a new understanding of age-old questions of individual and collective humanity.

For more information about Open Books, visit www.tfana.org/education/public-programs/open-books or call 212-229-2819, ext. 31.

Kenneth Gross - Thursday, April 25, at 6:00pm

In the first offering of the series, Kenneth Gross discusses the fascination of the puppet, its power to tap into the child's imagination and to find out and release instincts often hidden in adults; he explores how the puppet asks us to accept the dangerous and restorative gift of finding life and voice in objects, and to allow the puppet to awaken play in all of us. Mr. Gross's work takes up traditional and experimental puppet theatres from many cultures, as well as the puppet's place in our literature. Mr. Gross will read from Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life.

Kenneth Gross is professor of English at the University of Rochester. He is the author of five books, including The Dream of the Moving Statue, Shakespeare's Noise, and Shylock is Shakespeare. Mr. Gross was awarded the prestigious George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism­the highest award one can receive in the field of theatrical criticism­for Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life.

Penelope Niven - Tuesday, May 21, at 5:00pm

In the second offering of the series, Penelope Niven discusses her decade-long process of discovering Thornton Wilder, the multi-faceted, enigmatic and intensely private man behind the celebrated writer. Ms. Niven will read from Thornton Wilder: A Life. Question.

Ms. Niven is the author of critically acclaimed biographies of poet Carl Sandburg, photographer Edward Steichen, and playwright and novelist Thornton Wilder, as well as Swimming Lessons, a memoir, and Voices and Silences, coauthored with the actor James Earl Jones. Ms. Niven lectures both in the United States and abroad, and she has served as a consultant for television films about Sandburg, Steichen, and Jones.

Jonathan Kalb - Thursday, May 30, at 6:00pm

In the final offering of the series, curator Jonathan Kalb discusses why marathons are the slow food of theatrical art, the precious antidotes to the maddening and corrosive "hurry sickness" of the media age, with its ubiquitous pressure to abbreviate, compress and trivialize absolutely everything. He will discuss why even the best theater marathons aren't for everyone, but everyone could learn something from them about why theater endures and is still, despite everything, necessary and irreplaceable. Mr. Kalb will read from his award-winning book, Great Lengths: Seven Works of Marathon Theatre.

Jonathan Kalb is a theater critic and scholar whose work has appeared in Village Voice, The New York Times and many other publications. He is Professor in the Department of Theater at Hunter College, City University of New York, and author of Beckett in Performance, The Theater of Heiner Müller and two volumes of collected criticism. Mr. Kalb was chosen as the 2012 recipient of The George Freedley Award for his latest book, Great Lengths: Seven Works of Marathon Theater (University of Michigan Press). This award is given by the Theatre Library Association to an English-language book of outstanding scholarship that explores an aspect of live theater or performance. Mr. Kalb was also awarded the prestigious George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism - the highest award one can receive in the field of theatrical criticism - for the same work. This is the second time Kalb has received this honor (the first for his book Beckett in Performance). He is one of only three authors in this field to have won this award more than once.

Theatre for a New Audience's humanities programming is supported by a $500,000 Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, along with generous matching gifts from foundations and individuals. The Theatre must match the NEH's funds 3:1 with private gifts, and has raised more than half the required match.

Theatre for a New Audience: Founded in 1979 by Jeffrey Horowitz, Theatre for a New Audience's mission is to develop and vitalize the performance and study of Shakespeare and classic drama and produces Shakespeare alongside other classic and contemporary plays by authors such as Harley Granville Barker, Edward Bond, Adrienne Kennedy and Wallace Shawn.

Its 33rd season, the last before moving to its first home adjacent to BAM in the Downtown Brooklyn Cultural District, features boldly diverse works from William Shakespeare, Franz Kafka in a theatrical adaptation by Colin Teevan, Samuel Beckett and Wallace Shawn. In a co-production with The Public Theater, Mr. Shawn's plays will be part of The Wallace Shaw-André Gregory Project.

In 2001, Theatre for a New Audience became the first American theatre invited to bring a production of Shakespeare to the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), Stratford-upon-Avon. Cymbeline, directed by Bartlett Sher, premiered at the RSC; in 2007, Theatre for a New Audience was invited to return to the RSC with The Merchant of Venice starring F. Murray Abraham. In 2011, Mr. Abraham reprised his role as Shylock for a national tour.

The Theatre's productions have been honored with Tony, OBIE, Drama Desk, Drama League, Callaway, Lortel and Audelco awards and nominations and reach an audience diverse in age, economics and cultural background.

The Theatre created and runs the largest in-depth program in the New York City Public Schools to introduce students to Shakespeare, and has served more than 128,000 students since the program began in 1984. With the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, in 2011 it launched a summer Shakespeare Institute at Columbia University. TFANA Talks, a discussion series about the plays we produce is free and open to the public. Theatre for a New Audience is committed to economically accessible tickets for all audiences and offers the lowest reserved ticket price for youth in the city, $10 for any show, any time for those 25 years old and under and full time students of any age. In June, 2011, Theatre for a New Audience celebrated the groundbreaking for its first home, a center for Shakespeare and classic drama in the Downtown Brooklyn Cultural District. The Theatre will open in Fall 2013 with a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Julie Taymor and featuring original music by Elliot Goldenthal.

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