Theater for the New City to Fete Austin Pendleton at LOVE N' COURAGE Gala

Theater for the New City's Executive Director, Crystal Field, has announced that they will honor celebrated actor/director/teacher Austin Pendleton at this year's annual fundraising gala LOVE N' COURAGE. The event will take place on February 27 at 6 pm at the National Arts Club (15 Gramercy Park South).

The Lower East Side theater complex - now in its 31st year - will host LOVE N' COURAGE to raise funds for TNC's emerging writers programs, and each year salutes key figures in the arts community who support the development of new works for the stage.

Ms. Field notes the title LOVE N' COURAGE stems from the event's usual date near Valentine's Day, what she calls "a perfect theater time. It harks back to a time when theater was what television is today. It was the place to go, where art was created."

Theater for the New City has previously honored such artists as Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson, Edward Albee, Elaine Stritch, Bel Kaufman, Tammy Grimes, Mario Fratti and Vinie Burrows.

Beloved downtown performers Phoebe Legere and Matt Morillo will perform and act as emcees for the event. Headlining the tributes to Mr. Pendleton are Charles Busch, KT Sullivan, the Yip Harburg Foundation Rainbow Troupe, TNC's Street Theater Company, Kinding Sindaw Dance Co., Paloma Munoz and Electric Tango and Human Kinetics.

Austin Pendelton is an actor, director, playwright, and a teacher of acting at HB Studio in New York. As an actor he made his Broadway debut in the original production of Fiddler on the Roof, which was directed by Jerome Robbins. Subsequent Broadway productions in which he has appeared include Hail Scrawdyke (Clarence Derwent Award winner), Mike Nichols' production of The Little Foxes, Doubles, and The Diary of Anne Frank (with Natalie Portman and Linda Lavin, in a new adaptation by Wendy Kesselman). He has also acted extensively off-Broadway and in other regional theatres, notably Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre, where he is a member of the Ensemble. He has acted in about 200 movies, and on such TV shows as "Oz" and "Homicide," in each of which he has appeared in recurring roles. He has directed on, off, and off-off Broadway, at the Williamstown Theatre Festival (where he apprenticed under the guidance of Nikos Psacharopoulos), as well as at The National Theatre of Great Britain. His plays, published and produced in New York, around the country, and internationally, are Orson's Shadow, Uncle Bob, and Booth.

The event will also remember the lasting affect that long-time board member Betsy von Furstenberg had on TNC. Ms. Von Furstenberg passed way in April 2015 and was a Broadway, television and film actress, philanthropist and staunch financial and spiritual supporter of the organization. Her numerous appearances on Broadway include The Second Threshold, The Chalk Garden, Nature's Way The Gingerbread Lady, Avanti! And Does Anybody Here Do The Peabody?

Theater for the New City is a Pulitzer Prize-winning complex of theaters and a community cultural center known for its high artistic standards and widespread community service. One of New York's most prolific theatrical organizations, TNC produces 40 premieres of new American plays per year, including several by emerging and young playwrights. TNC also presents plays by multi-ethnic and multi-disciplinary theater companies such as Mabou Mines, Living Theater, Bread and Puppet Theater, San Francisco Mime Troupe and COBU, the Japanese women's drumming and dance group. TNC productions have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the AUDELCO Award and more than 40 Obie Awards for excellence in every theatrical discipline. TNC is the only theatrical organization to have won the Mayor's Stop the Violence Award.

In 2013, Borough President Scott Stringer designated January 26 as TNC APPRECIATION DAY on the occasion of the theater's having paid off its mortgage, which the company celebrated with a mortgage-burning ceremony. The theater continues to recognize January 26 each year as TNC APPRECIATION DAY.

LOVE N' COURAGE begins at 6 pm with cocktails followed by dinner at 6:45 pm and a performance and presentation at 8 pm. Seating for the event is limited to 180 patrons. Individual tickets are $175, and $1600 for tables of 10. For reservations, call Theater for the New City at 212 254 1109 or visit SmartTix.com or TNC's website www.theaterforthenewcity.net.