Food for Thought

With a company roster of actors that includes Marcia Gay Harden, Treat Williams, Rosie Perez, Campbell Scott, Danny Aiello and Kathleen Turner among others, Food for Thought is an innovative midday play-reading series that not only serves up lunch and literature with respected actors reading works by award-winning playwrights such as Arthur Miller, Anton Chekhov, Tennessee Williams, Lillian Hellman, Harold Pinter, George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde among others but has garnered a reputation for premiering new works. Immediately following each reading, audience members are invited to participate in a question and answer session with the actors, playwright and director of the reading.

The season begins with Arthur Miller’s A Memory of Two Mondays on Monday, September 20th and Harold Pinter’s classic The Homecoming on Thursday, September 23rd. The actors will be on hand for a Q&A session following both readings.

On October 7th, Lynn Redgrave will premiere her new one-woman play, Nightingale, a piece based on her maternal grandmother. In addition, Ms. Redgrave will be reunited with the cast of Talking Heads – Kathleen Chalfant, Christine Ebersole and Frances Sternhagen – who will all perform excerpts from their respective monologues. Following the performance, the Talking Heads cast will present a special playwriting fellowship in their names to a local student. Emerging Playwriting fellowships are already named for Marian Seldes, Patricia Neal, Joyce Carol Oates and Julie Harris. FOOD FOR THOUGHT’s resident directors are Melvin Bernhardt and Austin Pendleton.

The evening Cocktail Hour, which will be held once a month on Friday nights at 5:30PM (beginning October 22nd and running through June 17th), will include a wine and cheese reception, followed by a play reading and a thought-provoking Q&A with the cast and director. The evening fare (see attached schedule) will include works by George Bernard Shaw, William Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Agatha Christie , Steve Martin and Tom Stoppard, among others.

Readings are on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 12:30PM – 2PM.