Cynthia Nixon, Salman Rushdie, and More Set for The Public Forum Series This Fall

The Public Theater has announced plans for the fall 2014 Public Forum season, featuring one-night-only readings and discussions that connect dramatic literature to society.

The Public Forum will kick off on September 15 at Joe's Pub with Drama Club: The Good Book, featuring excerpts from a new play-in-progress by Denis O’Hare and Lisa Peterson. The Good Book skips back and forth between the centuries when the Bible stories were compiled and between people who try to make sense of them in our own time. Academy Award winner F. Murray Abraham, historian of Ancient Christianity Margaret Mitchell, author Bruce Feiler, O’Hare, and Peterson lead the cast.

Drama Club: Seagulls, a reading and discussion of a rarely seen one-act play by Caryl Churchill, will continue the season on October 26 at Joe's Pub. Cynthia Nixon will lead the cast, which also includes playwright Rinne Groff.

The Public Forum Duet series of one-on-one conversations will continue on October 27 as authors Alison Bechdel (Fun Home) and Jonathan Lethem (The Fortress of Solitude) discuss storytelling, graphic novels, and the experience of seeing their lives turned into musicals. This evening in The Public’s Newman Theater will also feature musical performances.

Marking the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Public Forum will present Drama Club: Protest by Vaclav Havel on November 9 at Joe's Pub. Author Salman Rushdie (The Satanic Verses), playwright-actor Wallace Shawn (The Designated Mourner), and David Remnick (editor of The New Yorker) will read Havel’s play, then talk about his political and literary legacy.

Celebrating its fifth year, the popular Public Forum series presents the theater of ideas: conversations and performances with leading voices in politics, media, and the arts.