Dan Ziskie News

Midtown Direct Rep (MDR), the resident theater company at South Orange Performing Arts Center (SOPAC), has announced that Academy Award-winner Olympia Dukakis will be joined by Midtown Direct Rep company members Sebastian Arcelus, Jenny Bacon, Emily Bauer and Stephanie Kurtzuba, plus special guests Kendra Jain and Dan Ziskie in a one-night-only staged reading of ABSENCE, a new play about memory loss. Former-actress turned director Margaret Whitton stages this new work by emerging playwright Peter M. Floyd that was honored by the Kennedy Center's 2012 Jean Kennedy Smith Award and the 2012 Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition. The performance, part of MDR's Theatre in the Loft series focusing on new and innovative American theatre, is Sunday, January 5, 2014 at 7 pm at SOPAC (One SOPAC Way, South Orange, NJ, 07079). Tickets, which are $15, are available at http://www.sopacnow.org/673/MDR-in-the-Loft-Jan5 or by calling 973-313-ARTS (2787). The performance will be followed by a discussion with the playwright, the cast and creative team. In ABSENCE, an excitingly theatrical play about aging, power, grace and imagination, Olympia Dukakis plays Helen, an iron-willed woman who suffers from memory loss. As her sense of self dissolves with her memories, she struggles to find meaning in her new existence.

On next week's new episode of ZERO HOUR, titled 'Pendulum,' with a renewed determination to find Laila, Hank returns from India, searching for new clues while Laila, who is being held hostage by White Vincent, is tasked with repairing the next clock for him.

Emmy and Tony Award Winner Christine Baranski Guest Stars as Victoria Hartley on ABC's UGLY BETTY 'A Mother of a Problem' - Betty meets Matt's mother (guest star Christine Baranski) but things don't go as she expects. Meanwhile, Wilhelmina gets creative to solve a cash flow problem, Daniel deals with the latest wrinkle in his relationship with Molly, and the Suarez family conspire to set Hilda up with Archie (guest star Ralph Macchio), the promising city councilman from Queens, on ABC's 'Ugly Betty,' THURSDAY, MARCH 12 (8:00-9:00 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network.