Friday, November 4, 2011

Vintage Players This Saturday

On Saturday November 5, the Middletown-based Vintage Players presents a staged reading of "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been", the 1972 play by Eric Bentley.  The performance is at 7:30 p.m. and will take place in the Green Street Arts Center, Green St in Middletown. Peter Gottschalk, Professor of Religion at Wesleyan University and author of "Islamphobia: Making Muslims the Enemy", will present a Pre-performance Talk at 7 p.m.

During the course of the reading, the audience will hear the words of writers Abe Burrows and Lillian Hellman, actors Larry Parks, Sterling Hayden and vocalist, actor, and civil rights activist Paul Robeson (among others.)
Director Carolyn Kirsch rediscovered the play during the midst of New York Representative Peter King's "Muslim Hearings" in the Congressional House of Representatives this past March. The eloquent testimony of Minnesota Democratic Representative Keith Ellison, the first Muslim-American ever elected to the House, spurred Kirsch to look into presenting this reading.  The cast includes Peter Sipples, Carlton Winslow, Charlie Rich, Richard Kamins, Nat Holmes, Vijay Pinch, Rick Nelson, Myron Gubitz, Pat Murray and Terri Klein with the offstage assistance of Peggy Welsh and Producer Jane McMillan.

Suggested donation is $5.00. For reservations, call the Green Street Arts Center at 860-685-7871. 

1 comment:

John Hall said...

I saw this production in the spring. It is very powerful and timely, and I highly recommend it to all who are concerned about hysterical paranoia in the political world -- suspicion of Muslims, for esample.