Stockard Channing and Laura Benanti to Lead COLLECTED STORIES Benefit Reading, 5/7

Tony Award winning actresses Stockard Channing (Other Desert Cities, The West Wing) and Laura Benanti (Gypsy, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) will star in a one-night only reading of Pulitzer Prize winner Donald Margulies' Collected Stories to benefit Opening Act, an innovative nonprofit that provides free after-school theater programming to New York City's most under-served public high schools.

Directed by Broadway veteran Michael Mastro (West Side Story, Side Man), Collected Stories chronicles the relationship between a renowned New York author and her protégé.

Collected Stories will mark Opening Act's Broadway debut for its 6th Annual Benefit Play Reading.  Last year's reading of Hate Mailstarred Cynthia Nixon (Sex and the City, Rabbit Hole) and John Slattery (Mad Men, Rabbit Hole).  Past events have featured the talents of Edie Falco (Nurse Jackie, The Sopranos) and the original cast of Side Man for the play's 10th Anniversary Reunion, as well as Bernadette Peters (Follies, Gypsy) and John Dossett (HBO's John Adams, Gypsy) in Love Letters.

Opening Act is a unique nonprofit that brings free, long-term theater programming to ten of New York City's most under-served public high schools.  Through theater, Opening Act students gain confidence, pride, and the knowledge that they can succeed at anything in life.  Opening Act's vision is to see that every New York City public school student has access to an artistic space where they can develop commitment, community, and leadership through their artistic achievement.  Please visit www.openingactnewyork.org to learn more about Opening Act's programs.

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