THE NEW SCHOOL FOR DRAMA | http://newschool.edu/drama Acclaimed actress Kathleen Chalfant speaks about her experience on stage and her approach to theater before the assembled student body of The New School for Drama in a town-hall meeting moderated by New School for Drama Director Pippin Parker. Kathleen Chalfant is an award-winning stage, film, and television actress recognized for both her high level of artistry and her deep involvement with social and cultural issues."
Bio
Kathleen Chalfant
Drama Desk Award-winning actor Kathleen Chalfant is the
distinguished Artist-in-Residence for the 2011-2012 academic year at The New School for Drama in New York City.
Chalfant earned a Tony nomination for her role in the New York premiere
of Angels in America, and won Drama Desk, OBIE, Lucille Lortel and Outer
Critics Circle awards for starring in the original Broadway production
of Wit.
Along with Angels in America and Wit, Chalfant's New York
stage credits include the New York premiere of Racing Demon, M.
Butterfly, Spalding Gray: Stories Left to Tell, Talking Heads (for which
she won a second OBIE Award), Great Expectations at Theatreworks/USA,
Guantanamo at the Culture Project, and Henry V at the New York
Shakespeare Festival. Her film work includes Tony Gilroy's Duplicity,
Whit Stillman's The Last Days of Disco and Bill Condon's Kinsey.
In addition to her Drama Desk, OBIE, and Lucile Lortel
honors, Chalfant has received the Drama League and Sidney Kingsley
Awards for her body of work, as well as a 1996 OBIE Award for Sustained
Excellence of Performance. A founding member of the Women's Project,
Chalfant is a board member of The Vineyard Theatre and Broadway
Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, and an advisory board member of the New York
Foundation for the Arts. Chalfant has served as Artist in Residence at
the Weill College of Medicine of Cornell University (2005 -- 2006) and a
Beineke Fellow at the Yale School of Drama (spring 2006, fall 2008,
fall 2010). She was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from
the Cooper Union in June 2010.
Pippin Parker
Pippin Parker is chair of the Playwriting Department at The New School for Drama. Parker works as a writer in theater, film, television, radio and interactive media. He is a founding member and former Artistic Director of Naked Angels Theater Company in New York City and a founding member of Writer Group, a collective of dramatic and fiction authors, whose members include Nicole Burdette, Frank Pugliese and Kenny Lonergan.
With Naked Angels, Mr. Parker helped originate their Tuesdays@9 cold reading series, which has for the past 15 years brought together emerging playwrights and actors for weekly presentations of works-in-progress. He also co-conceived the company's signature Issues Projects, for which he has had the opportunity to collaborate with Amnesty International, The Center for American Progress, Project A.L.S. and The Culture Project.
His short play A Gift was produced in New York and Los Angeles and subsequently adapted for radio for NPR's The Next Big Thing, featuring Lily Taylor. He has been a staff writer for shows including the animated series The Tick, and developed work with producer Tom Fontana.
Current projects include his new play, Assisted Living, which has been presented at Naked Angels and at New York Stage and Film, and an original television series now in development at HBO. In an advisory capacity, he has worked as a dramaturge for the Drama Department and consultant for numerous plays and screenplays. Mr. Parker is an active member of several committees of the Writers Guild of America, East.
