Streep, Kline, Pendleton, Lewis and Weller Perform Courage in Concert Oct. 19

By Adam Hetrick
October 19, 2009

Academy Award-winning actors Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline head the cast of Courage in Concert — a benefit performance of music from Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children — Oct. 19 at the Public Theater.

The 8 PM concert, featuring music penned by Tony nominee Jeanine Tesori for the 2006 Shakespeare in the Park production of Mother Courage, reunites Streep and Kline, as well as principal cast members Jenifer Lewis, Austin Pendleton and Frederick Weller.

Also announced to perform are cast members from the Tony-winning revival of Hair as well as Daniel Craig, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Linda Emond and Mike Nichols.

The evening serves as a benefit for the American Jewish World Service and Partners In Health, both of which aim to improve the well-being of people in impoverished communities around the world.

Hair Tony nominees Will Swenson and Gavin Creel will also host a Courage in Concert viewing party at Joe's Pub, where the concert will be broadcast live.

Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning Playwright Tony Kushner translated Bertolt Brecht's anti-war drama, which incorporated a score by Kushner's Caroline, or Change collaborator, Jeanine Tesori. Former Public Theater artistic director George C. Wolfe directed.

“When you work on or watch or read the plays of Bertolt Brecht you’re compelled to ask yourself questions about the relationship between art and the troubled world outside. These questions are complicated, have no easy answers,” Tony Kushner said in a previous statement. “Three summers ago, we presented Mother Courage and Her Children directed by George C. Wolfe and I think I can speak for everyone involved that the experience was thrilling, moving, and left many of us wanting to extend our encounter with this immense play and its provocations. Jeanine Tesori, Meryl Streep and I have been discussing putting together a concert version of the score as a benefit. Together we chose two groups whose work we admire enormously: American Jewish World Services and Partners In Health. Both AJWS and PIH insistently call attention not only to the needs of the poor but to the underlying causes of their poverty. The connection they forge between understanding and action is the connection at the heart of Brecht’s play.”

For tickets phone (212) 967-7555 or visit PublicTheater.

The Public Theater is located at 425 Lafayette Street in Manhattan.