Alec Baldwin and Laila Robins are F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, March 13 in the Manhattan Theatre Club's Writers in Performance 2000 series kick off, "The Fitzgeralds." The series, under the direction of Steve Lawson, presents the works of writers and poets in unique ways suited to the stage.
Celebrating the 75th anniversary of "The Great Gatsby's" publishing and the centennial of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald's birth, Baldwin and Robins will read anecdotes, diary entries, unpublished letters and excerpts from Fitzgerald's books.
The film star of "The Hunt For Red October" and "Outside Providence," Baldwin most recently trod the New York City boards in the Public Theatre's production of Macbeth with Angela Bassett. His Broadway debut came as Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire opposite Jessica Lange. Robins performed on Broadway as Susanna Shakespeare The Herbal Bed and in The Real Thing opposite Jeremy Irons.
Tickets are $12. Manhattan Theatre Club is located at 131 West 55th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues. For reservations and information, call (212) 399-3030. Manhattan Theatre Club is on the web at http://www.mtc-nyc.org.
* The Writers in Performance series continues with a Colette night March 27. Judith Thurman, author of the new biography on the writer, "Secrets of the Flesh," will introduce the evening's performance based on Colette's erotic writing and life. Robert Sean Leonard (The Iceman Cometh), David Strathairn (Ashes to Ashes), Penny Fuller (A New Brain) and Mary Louise Wilson (Cabaret, Full Gallop). The event comes exactly 100 years to the week of the publication of Colette's first book.
April 17 is the "A Literary Lion: In Conversation" talk where an author joins MTC for discussion and question/answer period with the audience. Possible guests include Studs Terkel, Pulitzer Prize winning poet Mark Strand and author of "The Cider House Rules," "A Prayer for Owen Meaney" and "The World According To Garp" John Irving.
Variety speak infuses "Flix Crix Nix Pix," an evening of famous and infamous theatre, film and literary criticism. "The New Yorker's" drama critic John Lahr introduces the collection of bad writing and good writing on bad writing (including a question that has echoed down through history, "Who wants to see a play about an unhappy traveling salesman?"). Mary Cleere Haran is featured.
Tickets to all four events are $40.
-- By Christine Ehren
