Bobby Cannavale, Cynthia Nixon, Edie Falco and More to be Featured on The New Group's WHY WE DO IT Series

The New Group is launching a live online conversation series with the company's community of artists entitled, "Why We Do It." The series commences on Wednesday, May 6 at 4:00PM EST with a conversation between Founding Artistic Director of The New Group, Scott Elliott and award-winning actor and director Cynthia Nixon. All conversations in the "Why We Do It" series are FREE and publicly available via Facebook Live (facebook.com/TheNewGroupNYC) and later archived on The New Group's YouTube page (youtube.com/TheNewGroupNYC).

Next in the series will be acclaimed actor Bobby Cannavale (May 13), Tony-winning Scenic Designer Derek McLane (May 20), award-winning actor Edie Falco (May 27), visionary writer and director Erica Schmidt (June 3), and boundary-breaking playwright Donja R. Love (June 10) with all conversations taking place at 4:00PM EST, moderated by Scott Elliott. Additional artists to be announced for future dates.

Immediately following the free Facebook Live "Why We Do It" conversations, audiences are invited to keep the insightful conversation going over virtual drinks with these artists via Q&A in "Drinks With," an intimate scale Zoom setting, with a very limited number of participants, moderated by Scott Elliott. Original drink recipes curated by Sammi Katz, creator of A Girl's Guide to Drinking Alone (AGirlsGuidetoDrinkingAlone.com). Please visit TheNewGroup.org/why-we-do-it to register and make a donation for the "Drinks With" events only, available for a $100 tax-deductible donation per participant per talk.

This vital support sustains The New Group and its core programs during these times, as the company continues to work with artists whose new work is in development and provides remote learning for students in The New Group's BFA acting program in collaboration with Long Island University-Brooklyn, and Scene 1, the company's free education program for New York City public high school students.

"Crisis asks us why we do what we do and what theater offers to its community. In better times, we meet in the theater to grapple collectively with challenging moments in our communal lives; to see what's really happening under the surface, or equally important, relocate the humor and perspective that allow us to go on. We are keenly missing this kind of hopefulness and clarity right now and imagine that you might be too. Since we've been thinking about "why we do what we do", we've asked some of our immediate community of artists to join us for creative conversations that explore what continues to draw them to the theater, touchstones in their theater careers and what hopes they have going forward," shares Founding Artistic Director Scott Elliott and Executive Director Adam Bernstein.