The reading of the two-person show, drawn from the correspondence between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, casts Fraser as Woolf with McCormick as Sackville-West. Presented by This Perpetual Fight, the evening is scheduled to begin at 6:30 PM.
Vita & Virginia, according to press notes, chronicles "the remarkable friendship and intimate love affair between [Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West], two of the most celebrated members of the famous Bloomsbury Group in 1920s London." The play, set in the 1920s and 1930s through the first years of WWII, deals with "women seeking their place in the world as they face personal and professional conflicts as well as the looming world war."
Vita & Virginia was first seen at the Chichester Festival in 1992 with Penelope Wilton and Eileen Atkins; the play was then produced Off-Broadway in 1994 starring Vanessa Redgrave and playwright Atkins. Kathleen Chalfant and Patricia Elliot recently played a limited engagement in the two-hander at the Zipper Factory.
Alison Fraser, who plays Tessie Tura in Gypsy, received Tony nominations for her performances in Romance/Romance and The Secret Garden, and her other Broadway credits include The Mystery of Edwin Drood and the 1996 revival of Tartuffe. She created the role of Trina in William Finn's In Trousers and March of the Falsettos and starred in the national tour of High School Musical as well as in productions of Lizzie Borden, Honk!, Lend Me a Tenor, Gunmetal Blues and Lips Together, Teeth Apart. Her screen credits include "Law & Order: SVU," "Third Watch," "The Thing About My Folks," "Jack and His Friends" and "In the Blood." Fraser will join Mary Testa for a concert at the West Bank Cafe Oct. 20.
Carolyn McCormick currently plays Dora Strang in the Broadway revival of Equus. She has also been seen on Broadway in Private Lives and The Dinner Party and Off-Broadway in Celebration, Privilege, Biography, Eve-olution, Dinner With Friends and Ancestral Voices. Since 1991 McCormick has played Dr. Olivet on every incarnation of "Law & Order." Her other screen credits include "Cracker," "Spenser: For Hire," "You Know My Name," "Loverboy," "A Simple Twist of Fate," "Enemy Mine" and the forthcoming "Nights in Rodanthe." The Grolier Club is located at 47 East 60th Street in Manhattan. Tickets, priced $18, are available by visiting http://www.smarttix.com/show.aspx?showCode=VIT1 Student tickets are available by emailing [email protected].
