Berkeley Rep Hosts SELECTED SHORTS With Jill Eikenberry & Michael Tucker

On Sunday, April 1, the hometown of California cuisine hosts a day of "Delicious Fictions" featuring Golden Globe Award-winner Jill Eikenberry and Emmy Award-nominee Michael Tucker.

The leads of the popular TV show LA Law join host Isaiah Sheffer to perform a trio of luscious, hilarious, and provocative tales about food and love. Audiences can enjoy Selected Shorts live in performance at 2 PM and 7 PM in the Roda Theatre. This event is produced by Berkeley Rep in association with Jonathan Reinis Productions.

About the event: "Every week, great actors from stage, screen, and television bring incredible stories to life on Selected Shorts. The originator of "the driveway moment," Selected Shorts is the show more than 300,000 people listen to every week on public radio. The series is hosted by Sheffer with literary commentator Hannah Tinti, and produced by Symphony Space and WNYC Radio."

Tickets start at $35 – half that for anyone under 30 years of age. Seats go on sale to Berkeley Rep's subscribers on January 25; the public can access tickets beginning February 1. To purchase seats, or for more information, call (510) 647-2949 or visit berkeleyrep.org.

Jill Eikenberry has a long list of theatre, film, and television credits. She is best known for portraying Ann Kelsey on NBC's LA Law, which earned her four Emmy nominations, two Golden Globe nominations, and a Golden Globe Award. Since making her feature film debut in 1976, she's been seen in everything from Arthur and The Manhattan Project to Something Borrowed and Young Adult. Her Broadway credits began with Moonchildren and went on to include Onward Victoria, Summer Brave, Watch on the Rhine, and All Over Town, directed by Dustin Hoffman. Eikenberry was honored with an Obie Award for Lemon Sky and Life Under Water, and her recent off-Broadway appearances include A Picasso, Enter Laughing, and The Kid. Seen in Wendy Wasserstein's Uncommon Women and Others, she reprised that role opposite Meryl Streep in the PBS film. Her regional credits include the Arena Stage, Long Wharf Theater, Marin Theatre Company, and Yale Repertory Theatre, and local audiences will recall Eikenberry from The Vagina Monologues at Circle in the Square and the Napa Valley Opera House.

A veteran stage, film, and television actor, Michael Tucker is best known for his role as Stuart Markowitz on LA Law. His eight-year stint on the popular NBC drama brought him three Emmy nominations and two Golden Globe nominations. His Broadway credits include The Goodbye People, Moonchildren, and Trelawny of the Wells with John Lithgow, Mandy Patinkin, and Meryl Streep. He performed principal roles in The Comedy of Errors, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Measure for Measure for Joe Papp in Central Park. His other New York credits include Lincoln Center, Manhattan Theatre Club, Playwrights Horizons, the Roundabout Theatre, and Second Stage Theatre. Regionally, he's been seen at Arena Stage, Long Wharf Theatre, and Milwaukee Repertory Theater, and he helped reopen the Geary Theatre in San Francisco by performing in The Tempest. Tucker's film credits include Diner, The Eyes of Laura Mars, Network, A Night Full of Rain, Radio Days, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Tin Men, and An Unmarried Woman. He is the author of three books: Family Meals: Coming Together to Care for an Aging Parent, I Never Forget a Meal: An Indulgent Reminiscence, and Living in a Foreign Language: A Memoir of Food, Wine, and Love in Italy.

Isaiah Sheffer is co-founder of Symphony Space and serves as its artistic director, now preparing for the theatre's 30th anniversary season. At Symphony Space, he hosts and directs the long-running hit series Selected Shorts – live, on tour, and in its PRI radio incarnation across the country. He also stages the annual James Joyce celebration "Bloomsday on Broadway," as he has for the past 26 years. With Martin Sage, Sheffer creates the theatre's hit political cabaret, The Thalia Follies. Sheffer's writing for the stage and screen includes the book and lyrics to two successful musicals, The Rise of David Levinsky and Yiddle with a Fiddle, as well as an original play about Isaac Bashevis Singer, Demons and Dreamers, and the libretto for a baroque ballet on the subject of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, A More Perfect Union. In 2006, he launched Symphony Space's Summer Stock on Broadway with a Rodgers and Hart reconstructed musical, Manhattan Madcaps of 1924 by Jerzy Turnpike. His television writing includes scripts for the PBS series Millennium: The Music of Ten Centuries, and he wrote the screenplay for A Pair of Jokers, which starred Jerry Stiller.

Berkeley Repertory Theatre has grown from a storefront stage to a national leader in innovative theatre. Known for its core values of imagination and excellence, as well as its educated and adventurous audience, the nonprofit has provided a welcoming home for emerging and established artists since 1968. With two stages, a school, and a Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre, Berkeley Rep is proud to premiere exhilarating new plays. In the last six years, the company has helped send six shows to Broadway. Seven more landed off Broadway, one moved to London, two turned into films, and others have toured the nation. Come see tomorrow's plays today at Berkeley Rep.

Jonathan Reinis is the producer of more than 150 plays, musicals, and dance performances including the Broadway productions of Jerry Springer: The Opera with Harvey Keitel at Carnegie Hall (2008), How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2006-2007), Kiki and Herb: Alive on Broadway (2006 Tony nomination), Dame Edna (2000 Tony Award), Russell Simmons's Def Poetry Jam (2003 Tony Award), Bill Maher: Victory Begins at Home (2003 Tony nomination), and It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues (1999 Tony nomination). His off-Broadway credits include Room Service, Marga Gomez's Los Big Names, Josh Kornbluth's Love & Taxes, and Shay Duffin as Brendan Behan. Bay Area touring productions include Carrie Fisher at Berkeley Rep; Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues; Josh Kornbluth's Ben Franklin: Unplugged; Sam Shepard's The Late Henry Moss with Sean Penn, Woody Harrelson, Nick Nolte, and Cheech Marin; Dame Edna; Ennio; His Way; Sandra Bernhardt; John Leguizamo's premiere of Freak; Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde; and the national tours of Forever Tango, The Piano Lesson, and Steve Martin's Picasso at the Lapin Agile. Reinis built Theatre on the Square in downtown San Francisco and operated it for more than 20 years. He is a member of the Broadway League and ATPAM.

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