Kate Burton & Michael Cumpsty Lead 'Poet's Theatre' Reading at 92nd Street Y, 5/24

On Monday, May 24 at 8 pm, Tony-nominated actors Kate Burton and Michael Cumpsty will star in a reading of THE Poets' Theatre: Elizabeth Bishop & Robert Lowell at the 92nd Street Y. Sixty-three years after they were supposed to meet at the 92nd Street Y, star-crossed poets and long-time pen pals Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell will get another chance. Burton and Cumpsty will read from Bishop and Lowell's letters and poetry, drawing on the 2008 book, Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell (out by Faber and Faber).

Burton made her Broadway debut  in the 1982 production of the Noel Coward play Present Laughter, directed by George C. Scott. The following year, she appeared in the Broadway production of Doonesbury.  Broadway credits that followed include roles in An American Daughter, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, and The Constant Wife, Spring Awakening, Company, Jake's Women, Hedda Gabler (Tony nomination) and The Elephant Man (Tony nomination), among others. This dual nomination made her one of only three actors, along with Amanda Plummer and Dana Ivey, to be Tony-nominated for two acting awards in the same year. Off-Broadway, she's appeared at Second Stage Theatre opposite Tony Goldwyn in The Water's Edge The Constant Wife. In 2007, she played Ranevskaya in The Cherry Orchard at Boston's Huntington Theatre. Her most notable screen role was that of Ellis Grey on Grey's Anatomy.

Cumpsty has appeared in nearly a dozen Broadway productions, including The Constant Wife with Burton, Sunday in the Park with George, Democracy, Copenhagen, Electra, 1776, Enchanted April, 42nd Street and Translations, among others.

Tickets for THE Poets' Theatre are $27 ($10 for those ages 35 and under). For tickets and more information, click here.

 

Photo Credit: Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.