LIBRARY NOTES
Affinity Collaborative Theater
For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio
Sunday, December 6, 2009 at 7:00 PM
Members' Room; $20 per person
Affinity Collaborative Theater return for the second year with their moving and popular production.
Written in 1942, when the world was at war, Auden's
Oratorio is a parable merging the Biblical and the contemporary with a result that is simultaneously audacious and poetic. Auden points the audience toward seeing present-day attitudes, desires, and failings in the Nativity, to see themselves as both the Wise Men and King Herod.
This concert-style dramatic reading is directed by Michael Cumpsty, star of the Tony Award-winning Copenhagen, and narrated by Maria Tucci, with a cast of exceptional classically trained actors. ACT presented
For the Time Being to sold-out audiences in 2007; Edward Mendelson, Auden's literary executor, said that it was by far the best production of the piece he had ever seen.
In his later years, W.H. Auden was a member of the Library, and his charging card and related materials will be displayed at the event.
Affinity Collaborative Theater is a new company committed to creating
stimulating productions with a community of artists for audiences of entertaining
and provocative theater, in order to enlarge and deepen perspectives on our
culture and society.
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