AR Gurney, Huntington Theatre's Playwriting Fellows to Speak at Upcoming Cocktail Hour Events

The Huntington Theatre Company announces the following special events in conjunction with its production of A.R. Gurney's The Cocktail Hour (now - December 15, 2013 at the Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre):

A Conversation with Playwright A.R. Gurney, Hosted by WBUR's Bob Oakes
Sunday, December 1, following the 2pm performance
Playwright A.R. Gurney will speak about his body of work and continuing career, his Boston connections, and his autobiographical play at a special post-show conversation led by Bob Oakes, host of WBUR's "Morning Edition." Admission is free with a ticket to any performance of The Cocktail Hour, available at huntingtontheatre.org/cocktail-hour and 617 266 0800.

A.R. Gurney's plays include The Cocktail Hour (Lucille Lortel Award), The Dining Room, Sylvia, Love Letters, Scenes from American Life (Drama Desk Award), Children, The Middle Ages, Richard Cory, The Golden Age, What I Did Last Summer, The Wayside Motor Inn, Sweet Sue, The Perfect Party, Another Antigone, The Snow Ball (adapted from his novel), The Old Boy, The Fourth Wall, Later Life, A Cheever Evening, Overtime, Let's Do It (a Cole Porter musical), Labor Day, Far East, Darlene and the Guest Lecturer, and Ancestral Voices. The Dining Room is the second play ever produced by the Huntington (1982), which also produced The Snow Ball in 1991. He wrote the libretto for the opera Strawberry Fields with music by Michael Torke. His other novels include The Gospel According to Joe and Entertaining Strangers. He is the recipient of the 2011 Drama Desk Special Award, a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Body of Work, and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Rockefeller Foundation, New England Theatre Conference, and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

Bob Oakes has been WBUR's Morning Edition anchor since 1992. He is one of the most well-known and respected news people in New England, with a 35-year career in radio broadcasting, including ten years with Boston's all-news commercial radio station WEEI and coverage of national issues for the CBS Radio Network.

Humanities Forum: Putting Family Onstage - with Huntington Playwriting Fellows
Kirsten Greenidge (Luck of the Irish) and David Valdez Greenwood (Wandaleria)

Sunday, December 8, following the 2pm performance
Huntington Playwriting Fellows Kirsten Greenidge and David Valdes Greenwood will discuss the process of writing about their own families in their work. Admission to the Humanities Forum is free with a ticket to any performance of The Cocktail Hour, available at huntingtontheatre.org/cocktail-hour and 617 266 0800. Humanities Forums are presented in conjunction with all Huntington productions and are hosted by Charles Haugland, a Huntington dramaturg.

Kirsten Greenidge is a Huntington Playwriting Fellow and the author of Luck of the Irish (premiered at the Huntington in 2011), Splendor, Bossa Nova, Milk Like Sugar, Rust, The Curious Walk of the Salamander, Sans-Culottes in the Promised Land, 103 Within the Veil, and The Gibson Girl. She has developed her work at Sundance (Utah and Ucross), Magic Theatre, National New Play Network, Cardinal Stage, South Coast Repertory, Madison Rep, Page 73, Hourglass Group, Bay Area Playwrights, Playwrights Horizons, New Dramatists, Mark Taper Forum, ASK, Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, Guthrie Theater, Mixed Blood, McCarter Theatre, Humana Festival of New American Plays, Moxie Theatre, and New Georges. She is a recipient of an NEA/TCG residency at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and was playwright-in-residence at Company One. She has also received Sundance's Time Warner Award for Bossa Nova. Ms. Greenidge attended Wesleyan University and the University of Iowa's Playwrights Workshop. She is a member of New Dramatists and Rhombus.

David Valdes Greenwood is a Huntington Playwriting Fellow and the author of a dozen plays produced across the US and UK including Wandaleria, Brave Navigator, published by Baker Plays and winner of the Midwest Theatre Network National New Play Contest, and Paradise of Earthworms, commissioned by Ensemble Studio Theatre. His plays have been staged at the Humana Festival, New York International Fringe Festival, City Theatre, Venture Theatre, Cherry Lane Theatre, and Emerson College, with readings presented by New York Theatre Workshop, Portland Stage, New Jersey Rep, Blue Coyote, Immediate Theatre, Theater Offensive, Boston TheatreWorks, and Centastage. His short plays Dream of Jeannie-by-the-Door and Day Either: Snow Globe have been anthologized. He is a Brother Thomas Fellow, a two-time Sloan Commission recipient, and a finalist for both the National New Play Network Smith Prize and a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Grant. As a prose writer, he is the author of three books and a Huffington Post blogger. He teaches at Tufts University.

The Cocktail Hour offers a window into a stalwart element of WASP culture: the pre-dinner cocktail hour. A revered ritual in John's parents' elegant home, all semblance of calm demeanor dissolves when he announces over martinis that he has written a play about his family. As the drinks flow, so do the revelations and recriminations, both funny and poignant, in this heartfelt comedy about the ties that bind. Performances continue through December 15 at the Boston University Theatre. Tickets are available at huntingtontheatre.org/cocktail-hour and 617 266 0800.

The American comedy of manners is directed by Maria Aitken (Betrayal, Private Lives, and Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps at the Huntington) and features James Waterston (Private Lives and Ah, Wilderness!) as John, the young playwright that reveals to his family members that they are the subject of his newest play. Richard Poe (The Taming of the Shrew) plays his father Bradley, Tony Award nominee and renowned Gurney interpreter Maureen Anderman (Becky Shaw and Third) plays John's mother, Ann; and Pamela J. Gray (Present Laughter and Butley) plays Nina, John's sister.