TCG and The Center for Fiction to Present Playwright Sarah Ruhl and Composer Matthew Aucoin in Conversation

The Center for Fiction, a 200-year-old literary nonprofit that has created an immersive home for readers and writers in downtown Brooklyn, and Theatre Communications Group, the national organization for theatre, will co-present Sarah Ruhl and Matthew Aucoin in Conversation on March 16 at 7pm ET at The Center for Fiction, 15 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217, and via livestream. Composer Matthew Aucoin and playwright Sarah Ruhl recently collaborated on an opera version of Ruhl's acclaimed play Eurydice. They will discuss their collaboration and the process of transforming the play into a libretto, which was in Ruhl's words, "one of distillation, with effort and grace." This event represents the fourth collaboration between The Center and TCG, with past events featuring Jackie Sibblies Drury and Claudia Rankine; Annie Baker and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins; and Heidi Schreck and Paula Vogel.

"We're thrilled to return to The Center for Fiction with this event," said Teresa Eyring, executive director, TCG. "The Center for Fiction is an ideal partner to advance TCG's conviction that plays are literature and worthy of the same resources, respect, and critical attention as any other form. We look forward to the cross-disciplinary conversation that two visionary artists, Sarah Ruhl and Matthew Aucoin, will share with both in-person and online attendees."

The event will take place at The Center for Fiction, 15 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217 on Wednesday, March 16, 2022 at 7pm ET. In-person tickets are $10 and include a $10 bookstore voucher, redeemable toward a copy of Eurydice. Livestream options include a $15.95 ticket with a copy of Eurydice or a suggested donation. Learn more and acquire your tickets here.

Since its founding in 1984, TCG Books has grown to become North America's largest independent trade publisher of dramatic literature, with 18 winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama on its book list. The book program commits to the life-long career of its playwrights, keeping all of their plays in print. TCG Books' authors include: Annie Baker, Nilo Cruz, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Larissa Fasthorse, Athol Fugard, Quiara Alegría Hudes, David Henry Hwang, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Adrienne Kennedy, Tony Kushner, Young Jean Lee, Lynn Nottage, Suzan-Lori Parks, Sarah Ruhl, Heidi Schreck, Stephen Sondheim, Paula Vogel, and August Wilson. TCG Books events are supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Sarah Ruhl's fifteen plays include the Pulitzer Prize finalists The Clean House and In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), also nominated for a Tony Award. Her awards include a MacArthur Fellowship, and her book of essays 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Eurydice, named one of the 25 best American plays of the past 25 years in 2018 by the New York Times, has been developed into an opera with music by Matthew Aucoin, and will be performed at The Metropolitan Opera in November 2021. Her most recent book, Smile: The Story of a Face, was published in 2021 by Simon & Schuster. Ruhl teaches at the Yale School of Drama, and lives in Brooklyn with her family.

Matthew Aucoin is an American composer, conductor, and writer. His opera Eurydice, which premiered in 2020 at the Los Angeles Opera, is being produced this November at New York's The Metropolitan Opera. He is a cofounder of the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC) and a 2018 MacArthur Fellow. Aucoin's orchestral and chamber music have been commissioned and performed by such artists as Yo-Yo Ma, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich, the Brentano Quartet, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the pianist Kirill Gerstein. His two previous operas, Crossing and Second Nature, have been performed across North America, including productions at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the Canadian Opera Company. As a conductor, Aucoin has appeared with the Los Angeles Opera, the Chicago Symphony, The Santa Fe Opera, the San Diego Symphony, the Rome Opera Orchestra, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and many other ensembles. Aucoin is the author of The Impossible Art: Adventures in Opera (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021), a book of reflections on the art form of opera. He is a regular contributor to leading publications including the New York Review of Books and the Atlantic.

The Center for Fiction is a literary nonprofit that brings diverse communities together to develop and share a passion for fiction. Founded in 1821 as the Mercantile Library of New York in Manhattan, the organization is now based in the heart of the Brooklyn cultural district, with a 18,000 sq. ft. facility that offers New Yorkers an immersive cultural experience centered on reading and writing. Throughout the year, The Center for Fiction provides a vast array of public programming, reading groups, and writing workshops. The First Novel Prize and Emerging Writer Fellowships help build literary careers, and KidsRead/KidsWrite programs inspire an early love of reading and writing in public school students with author-led events. In recent years, the organization's programming has expanded to include storytelling in all its forms, integrating music, theater, dance, film, television, and the visual arts into its exploration of the best of fiction throughout history and today.

The Center for Fiction, a 200-year-old literary nonprofit that has created an immersive home for readers and writers in downtown Brooklyn, and Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for theatre, will co-present Sarah Ruhl and Matthew Aucoin in Conversation on March 16 at 7pm ET at The Center for Fiction, 15 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217, and via livestream. Composer Matthew Aucoin and playwright Sarah Ruhl recently collaborated on an opera version of Ruhl's acclaimed play Eurydice. They will discuss their collaboration and the process of transforming the play into a libretto, which was in Ruhl's words, "one of distillation, with effort and grace." This event represents the fourth collaboration between The Center and TCG, with past events featuring Jackie Sibblies Drury and Claudia Rankine; Annie Baker and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins; and Heidi Schreck and Paula Vogel.

"We're thrilled to return to The Center for Fiction with this event," said Teresa Eyring, executive director, TCG. "The Center for Fiction is an ideal partner to advance TCG's conviction that plays are literature and worthy of the same resources, respect, and critical attention as any other form. We look forward to the cross-disciplinary conversation that two visionary artists, Sarah Ruhl and Matthew Aucoin, will share with both in-person and online attendees."

The event will take place at The Center for Fiction, 15 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217 on Wednesday, March 16, 2022 at 7pm ET. In-person tickets are $10 and include a $10 bookstore voucher, redeemable toward a copy of Eurydice. Livestream options include a $15.95 ticket with a copy of Eurydice or a suggested donation. Learn more and acquire your tickets here. For press tickets, please contact Corinna Schulenburg at cschulenburg@tcg.org.

Since its founding in 1984, TCG Books has grown to become North America's largest independent trade publisher of dramatic literature, with 18 winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama on its book list. The book program commits to the life-long career of its playwrights, keeping all of their plays in print. TCG Books' authors include: Annie Baker, Nilo Cruz, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Larissa Fasthorse, Athol Fugard, Quiara Alegría Hudes, David Henry Hwang, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Adrienne Kennedy, Tony Kushner, Young Jean Lee, Lynn Nottage, Suzan-Lori Parks, Sarah Ruhl, Heidi Schreck, Stephen Sondheim, Paula Vogel, and August Wilson. TCG Books events are supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Sarah Ruhl's fifteen plays include the Pulitzer Prize finalists The Clean House and In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), also nominated for a Tony Award. Her awards include a MacArthur Fellowship, and her book of essays 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Eurydice, named one of the 25 best American plays of the past 25 years in 2018 by the New York Times, has been developed into an opera with music by Matthew Aucoin, and will be performed at The Metropolitan Opera in November 2021. Her most recent book, Smile: The Story of a Face, was published in 2021 by Simon & Schuster. Ruhl teaches at the Yale School of Drama, and lives in Brooklyn with her family.

Matthew Aucoin is an American composer, conductor, and writer. His opera Eurydice, which premiered in 2020 at the Los Angeles Opera, is being produced this November at New York's The Metropolitan Opera. He is a cofounder of the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC) and a 2018 MacArthur Fellow. Aucoin's orchestral and chamber music have been commissioned and performed by such artists as Yo-Yo Ma, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich, the Brentano Quartet, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the pianist Kirill Gerstein. His two previous operas, Crossing and Second Nature, have been performed across North America, including productions at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the Canadian Opera Company. As a conductor, Aucoin has appeared with the Los Angeles Opera, the Chicago Symphony, The Santa Fe Opera, the San Diego Symphony, the Rome Opera Orchestra, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and many other ensembles. Aucoin is the author of The Impossible Art: Adventures in Opera (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021), a book of reflections on the art form of opera. He is a regular contributor to leading publications including the New York Review of Books and the Atlantic.

The Center for Fiction is a literary nonprofit that brings diverse communities together to develop and share a passion for fiction. Founded in 1821 as the Mercantile Library of New York in Manhattan, the organization is now based in the heart of the Brooklyn cultural district, with a 18,000 sq. ft. facility that offers New Yorkers an immersive cultural experience centered on reading and writing. Throughout the year, The Center for Fiction provides a vast array of public programming, reading groups, and writing workshops. The First Novel Prize and Emerging Writer Fellowships help build literary careers, and KidsRead/KidsWrite programs inspire an early love of reading and writing in public school students with author-led events. In recent years, the organization's programming has expanded to include storytelling in all its forms, integrating music, theater, dance, film, television, and the visual arts into its exploration of the best of fiction throughout history and today.