The Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College presents WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD!, an automythography written and performed by Meghan Duffy, on Wednesday, October 7, 2009, at 7pm at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College, 899 Tenth Avenue, NYC. Tickets are $15 (CUNY students FREE) and are available at Ticket Central, 212-279-4200, www.ticketcentral.com.
WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD! is a poignant memoir that artfully rewrites the social scripts available to women, explores the ways in which identities are policed by significant others, and underscores the lasting impressions of the first-generation American experience. The piece is written and performed by
Meghan Duffy and directed by Andrea Balis.
Mark Goodman provides musical accompaniment.
"Elegantly employing figurative language, Duffy invites her audience into the comfort childhood memories provide, while simultaneously employing the bittersweet wisdom of hindsight. As her prose gently transformed into poetry, Duffy left her audience wanting more." - Cristyn Davies, Women and Theatre
Meghan Duffy is a professional actor, theatre scholar, and educator, who has performed in every venue from Broadway to boats. She played Frenchy in the original Broadway production of Grease and her National Tour credits include Trixie in The Rocky Horror Show, Gooch in Mame, starring
Juliet Prowse, and Grease. She has appeared Off- and Off-Off-Broadway as Knowledge in a musical adaptation of Everyman, Lynnie in The Wonder Years, Helen in Swirl, Sissy in Something Blue, and Georgy in Georgy, a musical based on the film Georgy Girl. Regional Theatre productions include Brigadoon, A Christmas Survival Guide, Over Here, She Loves Me, Return to Forbidden Planet, Christmas Carol, Pump Boys & Dinettes, Beehive, Little Shop of Horrors,
Jacques Brel, Godspell, and Dames at Sea, for which she received a Sarah Siddons best actress nomination. In addition to What a Wonderful World!, The
Meghan Duffy Show, and Girls Don't, which she has performed in Toronto and New York, Meghan has created several cabaret pieces. She has recorded film soundtracks in London and the United States and can be heard on The Care Bear recordings, the CD Seize the Day, and is featured in one of the Mister Men children's videos. As a theatre scholar, she has worked collaboratively with Jennifer Danby, presenting "Playing C and M in Crave: A Performance Dialogue and Discussion," a performance-paper based on her experience as an actor in a reading of
Sarah Kane's Crave. Recently, she presented the performance-paper "Exploration and Discovery: A Trialogue Examining a Design for Innovation through the Art of Acting," with Janice Capuana and Peter Zazzali. Her publications include "Holly Hughes Gives Us a Peek at the Next Generation," co-authored with Jen-Scott Mobley, biographical entries for
Tina Howe,
Megan Terry,
Rochelle Owens, and
Terrence McNally for the Dictionary of Literary Biography and Grolier's Encyclopedia of American Drama, and "Janusz Glowacki's The Fourth Sister at the
Vineyard Theatre," a performance review for the Slavic and East European Performance Journal. Her book, Comedy: A Bibliography of Critical Studies in English on the Theory and Practice of Comedy in Drama, Theatre and Performance, was published in 2006. Currently, Meghan is the Director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, where she also teaches in the Interdisciplinary Studies Program. At the City University of New York Graduate Center, she has taught improvisation techniques to new teachers through the Professional Development Program. Her areas of expertise are 20th Century Realism, Gender and Performance, Theories of Comedy, and the Art of Improvisation. She is a founding director of The St. Vitus Theatre Company, an improvisational theatre group.
Since opening its doors in 1988, the Gerald W. Lynch Theater has been an invaluable cultural resource for John Jay College and the larger New York City community. Under the new direction of Executive Director Shannon R. Mayers, the Theater is dedicated to the creation and presentation of performing arts programming of all disciplines with a special focus on how the artistic imagination can shed light on the many perceptions of justice in our society.
About John Jay College of Criminal Justice: An international leader in educating for justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice of The City University of New York offers a rich liberal arts and professional studies curriculum to upwards of 14,000 undergraduate and graduate students from more than 135 nations. In teaching, scholarship and research, the College approaches justice as an applied art and science in serv
Ice To society and as an ongoing conversation about fundamental human desires for fairness, equality and the rule of law. For more information, visit www.jjay.cuny.edu.
For more information, visit
www.jjay.cuny.edu/theater.php.
