Reading of Ayn Rand's WE THE LIVING/THE UNCONQUERED Set for Today in NYC

A public reading of scenes from Ayn Rand's We the Living/The Unconquered will be performed today, September 29th, at 2pm at The Westside Theatre Downstairs (407 West 43rdStreet). Directed by Ann Ciccolella, We the Living/The Unconquered is produced by Austin Shakespeare, who produced a stage adaptation of Ayn Rand's Anthem Off-Broadway in 2013.

The We the Living/The Unconquered reading will feature Matthew Lieff Christian (Anthem), Gwendolyn Kelso (A Streetcar Named Desire in Austin) and Blake DeLong (Off-Broadway's Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812).

Set in Russia in the 1920's, We the Living/The Unconquered is Ayn Rand's powerful story ofKira Argounova, a university engineering student who falls in love with Leo Kovalensky, son of a czarist hero. Both Kira and Leo yearn to shape their own future, but they are trapped in a communist state. Following the reading there will be a brief audience Q&A talk-back with the editor of the published plays, Dr. RoBert Mayhew (Seton Hall University).

"During our Anthem performances at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, many individuals cited Rand's work as not just fiction, but as describing life in the totalitarian states they themselves had emigrated from, such as China, North Korea, Iraq, Iran and Eastern Europe," said Ciccolella. "We the Living/The Unconquered brings that into an even more dramatic experience."

To attend the reading, RSVP to ARunconquered@gmail.com.

Ann Ciccolella (Director) As Artistic Director of Austin Shakespeare's Ann has directed Shakespeare in Zilker Park since 2008, including a Bollywood-inspired Twelfth Night. Among their shows at The Long Center's Rollins Studio Theatre, she directed a female lead as Hamlet, Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, and The Invention of Love. A graduate of NYU in Dramatic Literature, History of Theater and Cinema, Ann directed a new adaptation of Ayn Rand's Anthem Off-Broadway in NYC at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in 2013.

Austin Shakespeare (Producer) Founded in 1984 and the only professional classical theater company in Central Texas. In the fall and spring, Austin Shakespeare also produces plays by Shaw, Schiller, and Stoppard at The Long Center for the Performing Arts Rollins Studio Theatre. Young Shakespeare performs annually at Richard Garriott's replica of the Curtain Theatre on the shores of Lake Austin.