Kathleen Chalfant to Deliver Address at Cooper Union Commencement 5/25

On May 25 at 10am, Obie and Drama Desk award-winning Broadway actress Kathleen Chalfant will deliver the keynote address at The Cooper Union's 151st Commencement.  Chalfant has performed in major productions in New York, Los Angeles and London. Well known to audiences for her portrayal of Vivian Bearing in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Wit, Ms. Chalfant received the Obie Award, Drama Desk Award, Lucille Lortel Award, Drama League Award and Los Angeles Ovation Award, among others, for her performance. Among her numerous honors, she was acclaimed for her Tony-nominated performance as Hannah Pitt in Tony Kushner's Angels in America: Millennium Approaches on Broadway and received her second Obie Award for her performance in Talking Heads. In 1996, Chalfant made her Shakespearean debut in The Public Theater's Henry V, for which she received that year's Calloway Award for Best Classical Performance.

In addition to her acting career, Chalfant is a longtime advocate for peace, equality and justice. In 2009, she appeared in The People Speak, an American documentary film which gave voice to the lives of ordinary Americans who fought back against oppressive conditions. She is also an advocate for the arts serving as a mentor of the Theatre Development Fund's Open Doors program, a founding member of the Women's Project, a member of the Board of Advisors of Médecins Sans Frontières /Doctors Without Borders and of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids. She is also active on the Advisory Board of the New York Foundation for the Arts.

During The Cooper Union's 150th anniversary celebrations, she made a compelling contribution to the college's "Great Evenings in The Great Hall" series, interpreting portions of Abraham Lincoln's historic "Right Makes Might" address.

Chalfant was Artist in Residence at the Weill College of Medicine of Cornell University for 2005-2006, a Beineke Fellow at the Yale School of Drama in 2006 and 2008. She is currently appearing in Beth Henley's Family Week directed by Jonathan Demme.

Chalfant's address will take place in The Great Hall at The Cooper Union, East 7th Street at Third and Fourth Avenues.  The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art is a distinguished private college of art, architecture and engineering founded in 1859 by Peter Cooper, an inventor, industrialist and philanthropist. Since its founding, all admitted students have received full-tuition scholarships.

For more information, visit http://www.cooper.edu or follow Cooper Union on Twitter at http://twitter.com/cooperunion.

 

 

 

 

Photo Credit: Linda Lenzi