Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer will moderate the conversation with Kushner. The evening is scheduled to begin at 6:30 PM inside the Robert H. Smith Auditorium.
As previously reported, Kushner's screenplay will be released by Theatre Communications Group (TCG) on Jan. 22, 2013, and contain a foreword by Kearns Goodwin as well as eight pages of color photos from the film.
The DreamWorks' film — a collaboration from Oscar winner Spielberg ("Schindler's List," "Saving Private Ryan") and Pulitzer Prize winner Kushner — opened in a wide release Nov. 16.
Kushner won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1993 for Angels in America and was Tony-nominated for the book and score of Broadway's Caroline, Or Change. His play The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scripture was seen in an Off-Broadway engagement last year at The Public Theater.
According to Dreamworks, the film focuses on "the political collision of Lincoln and the powerful men of his cabinet on the road to abolition and the end of the Civil War." Tony winner John Logan (Red) and Paul Webb are also credited as writers on the project. The cast features Oscar winners Daniel Day-Lewis ("My Left Foot") and Sally Field ("Norma Rae") as Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln, respectively, with David Strathairn (The Three Sisters, Dance of Death) as William Seward, Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Slava's Snowshow) as Robert Todd Lincoln, James Spader (Race) as W.N. Bilbo, Tony winner Hal Holbrook (Mark Twain Tonight!) as Francis Preston Blair, Tommy Lee Jones (Ulysses in Nighttown) as Thaddeus Stevens, John Hawkes (The 24 Hour Plays) as Robert Latham, Jackie Earle Haley (Slab Boys) as Alexander Stephens, Bruce McGill (My One and Only) as Edwin Stanton, Tim Blake Nelson (Eye of God) as Richard Schell, Joseph Cross ("Milk") as John Hay, Jared Harris ("Natural Born Killers") as Ulysses S. Grant, Lee Pace (The Normal Heart) as Fernando Wood and Tony nominee Colman Domingo (The Scottsboro Boys) as Private Harold Green.
The project, which was filmed last fall in Virginia, is produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Spielberg. Daniel Lupi is the executive producer.
The Robert H. Smith Auditorium at the New-York Historical Society is located at 170 Central Park West. For more information and tickets, call (212) 485-9268 or click here.
