The New School For Drama Names Kathleen Chalfant 2011-2012 Artist-in-Residence
New York, July 19, 2011—The New School for Drama has announced that
Drama Desk Award-winning actor Kathleen Chalfant will be the
distinguished Artist-in-Residence for the 2011-2012 academic year.
Chalfant earned a Tony nomination for her role in the New York premiere
of Angels in America, and won Drama Desk, OBIE, Lucille Lortel and Outer
Critics Circle awards for starring in the original Broadway production
of Wit.
"The New School has always been a mythical place for me,
and I am deeply honored to be asked to be the Artist-in-Residence at The
New School for Drama," said Chalfant. "As a mentor, I hope to reassure
these aspiring actors that their commitment to art, though not always
easy, is right and good. As actors and artists, our goal is nothing less
than to make the world a better place."
As artist-in-residence, Chalfant will teach master
classes in the fall and spring semesters. In addition, she will speak
about her experience on stage and her approach to theater before the
assembled student body of The New School for Drama in a town-hall
meeting moderated by New School for Drama Director Pippin Parker.
The New School for Drama's MFA acting program offers
intensive training in all aspects of the craft of acting, as well as in
the individual and collaborative application of classical and modern
texts. The program is comprised of three year-long stages: Discovery,
which builds a foundation of dramatic skills; Character and Demands of
the Text, which expand and deepen actors' character, voice, and movement
work; and Production and Professional Preparation, a year of in-depth
professional training focusing on new full-length and canonical plays.
The Artist-in-Residence program is one of many ways in which The New
School's legacy and location provide students with unique access to New
York's theater scene.
"Having originated some of the most notable roles in
contemporary theater, Kathleen's artistry and commitment to the value of
the theater as a significant cultural force is difficult to overstate,"
said Pippin Parker, Director, The New School for Drama. "Her storied
career, which speaks to a passionate commitment to theater's ability to
illuminate the human condition, is an inspiration to our students,
faculty and the wider theater community Kathleen's residency gives our
students a rare opportunity to interact closely with a legend, to
address everything from the foundations of technique to larger issues
about what it means to be an actor today."
Along with Angels in America and Wit, Chalfant's New York
stage credits include the New York premiere of Racing Demon, M.
Butterfly, Spalding Gray: Stories Left to Tell, Talking Heads (for which
she won a second OBIE Award), Great Expectations at Theatreworks/USA,
Guantanamo at the Culture Project, and Henry V at the New York
Shakespeare Festival. Her film work includes Tony Gilroy's Duplicity,
Whit Stillman's The Last Days of Disco and Bill Condon's Kinsey.
In addition to her Drama Desk, OBIE, and Lucile Lortel
honors, Chalfant has received the Drama League and Sidney Kingsley
Awards for her body of work, as well as a 1996 OBIE Award for Sustained
Excellence of Performance. A founding member of the Women's Project,
Chalfant is a board member of The Vineyard Theatre and Broadway
Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, and an advisory board member of the New York
Foundation for the Arts. Chalfant has served as Artist in Residence at
the Weill College of Medicine of Cornell University (2005 -- 2006) and a
Beineke Fellow at the Yale School of Drama (spring 2006, fall 2008,
fall 2010). She was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from
the Cooper Union in June 2010.
About The New School for Drama
At The New School for Drama, the instinct to create is revered. Through
its interrelated three-year MFA program in acting, directing, or
playwriting, the school is forging the next generation of dramatic
artists. A faculty of working professionals brings to the fore each
student's unique and original voice and helps them establish a rooted
sense of who they are as individuals and as artists. This faculty
includes Coordinator of Acting Kathryn Rossetter; Coordinator of
Playwriting Chris Shinn; Directing Coordinator Lou Jacob and notables
including Kenneth Lonergan and Jon Robin Baitz. The New School's history
in the dramatic arts began in the 1940s, when the Dramatic Workshop,
led by founder Erwin Piscator and a faculty including Stella Adler and
Lee Strasberg, fostered artistic voices as distinctive as Tennessee
Williams and Marlon Brando. For more information, visit www.newschool.edu/drama.
Previous Artists-in-Residence
