Description
The spotlight moves in mysterious ways…. Author, performer, and video-maker Dylan Marron (Conversations with People Who Hate Me) explores what it means to be recognized—and the thin line that separates celebrity and notoriety. With stories from Kenneth Calhoun, Tania James, Jade Jones, and Fiona Maazel and performances by Michelle Buteau (The First Wives Club), Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad), Moses Ingram (The Queen's Gambit), John Cameron Mitchell (Shrill), Josh Radnor (Hunters), and Miriam Shor (Younger).
Our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time. Sometimes funny. Always moving. Selected Shorts connects you to the world with a rich diversity of voices from literature, film, theater, and comedy.
PROGRAM
Hosted by Dylan Marron
The South Asian Speakers Series Presents the Archeologist and Adventurer
Indiana Jones by Tania James
Performed by Bryan Cranston
Today, You’re a Black Revolutionary by Jade Jones
Performed by Moses Ingram
On a Day Tammy Had Not Eaten Enough Yellow by Kenneth Calhoun
Performed by Michelle Buteau, John Cameron Mitchell, and Miriam Shor
Let’s Go to the Videotape by Fiona Maazel
Performed by Josh Radnor
Books by ourfeatured authors can be purchased from our friends at Strand. Use the code SYMPHONYSPACE to receive 10% off your purchase.
| This event is available to view with the Symphony Space 20-21 Season Pass. |
To Learn About the Artists
Michelle Buteau is a comedian and actress. Her film and television credits include Key and Peele, Enlisted, Broad City, The Tick, The Comedy Lineup, Comedy Knockout, Russian Doll, Isn’t It Romantic, High Maintenance, Tales of the City, Always Be My Maybe, Sell By, (Future) Cult Classic, Bless the Harts, Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens, Work It, Happiest Season, and The Stand In. She hosted the podcast Late Night Whenever! and regularly performs stand-up nationwide. Buteau can currently be seen on the series The First Wives Club. Upcoming projects include the film Marry Me starring Jennifer Lopez.
Kenneth Calhoun has published stories in The Paris Review, Tin House, New Stories from the South, Fence Magazine, Fiction International, St. Petersburg Review, Quick Fiction, and others. He is a recipient of the Italo Calvino Prize in Fabulist Fiction and a winner of the Summer Literary Seminars/Fence Magazine Fiction Contest. Calhoun is the author of the novel Black Moon.
Bryan Cranston is best known for portraying Hal in Malcolm in the Middle and Walter White in Breaking Bad, for which he won the Emmy Award four times. His numerous films include Saving Private Ryan, Argo, and Trumbo, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. On Broadway, Cranston received a Tony Award for his portrayal of President L. B. Johnson in All the Way, a role he reprised in HBO's 2016 television film of the same name. Cranston won his second Tony and a Laurence Olivier Award for his portrayal of Howard Beale in Network. He has directed several television shows and executive produced and wrote the story for the Amazon original crime drama Sneaky Pete. Recent film and television credits includeT heInfiltrator, In Dubious Battle, Wakefield, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, The One and Only Ivan, and The Stand. In 2016 he published the memoir A Life in Parts. Cranston currently stars in the Showtime mini-series Your Honor. Most recently, Cranston proudly released an artisanal Mezcal, Dos Hombres, with longtime friend and occasional cooking partner, Aaron Paul.
Moses Ingram is an actress and writer, known for her performances in Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit. A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, she has been featured in productions of Sweat, Romeo and Juliet, The Winter’s Tale, and Marty and the Hands that Could. In 2018, she was honored with the Princess Grace Award in Theater. Ingram wrote the screenplay for the short film Day 74 and will be seen in the upcoming feature MacBeth, directed by Joel Cohen and starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand.
Tania James is the author of the novels Atlas of Unknowns and The Tusk that Did the Damage, both of which were named New York Times Editor’s Choice and Best Book for The San Francisco Chronicle and NPR; and the short story collection Aerogrammes, which was a Best Book of 2012 for Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, and The San Francisco Chronicle. Her stories have appeared in Boston Review, Granta, Kenyon Review, One Story, and A Public Space. James has been a fellow of Ragdale, MacDowell, the Sustainable Arts Foundation, and the Fulbright Program. She teaches in the MFA program at George Mason University.
Jade Jones was born and raised in Southern New Jersey. A former Kimbilio Fiction Fellow, she is a graduate of Princeton University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was a Teaching-Writing Fellow. Both a writer and educator, Jade has taught all levels including elementary, college, and adult learners. A winner of the 2019 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, her work has appeared in The Rumpus and Catapult. She is currently a staff writer for Dipsea.
Dylan Marron is an IFP Gotham Award & Drama Desk-nominated writer, performer,
and video maker. He is the voice of Carlos on the hit podcast Welcome to Night Vale,
an alum of the New York Neo Futurists, and the creator of Every Single Word, a video
series that edits down popular films to only feature the words spoken by people of color.
As a writer and correspondent at Seriously.tv, Marron created, hosted, and produced
Sitting in Bathrooms with Trans People, Shutting Down Bullsh*t, and the Unboxing
series. He hosts and producesConversations with People Who Hate Me, which was
selected as a Podcast Pick by USA Today and The Guardian, named "the timeliest
podcast" by FastCompany, and won a Webby Award. Marron recently gave a TED Talk
and is currently writing Snowflake, which will be published in 2022.
Fiona Maazel is the author of the novels A Little More Human, Woke Up Lonely, and
Last Last Chance. She is a 2017 Guggenheim Fellow, winner of the Bard Prize for
Fiction, and a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree. Her work has appeared
in The Best American Short Stories 2017, Book Forum, Conjunctions, Harper’s, The
New York Times, Ploughshares, Salon, Selected Shorts, This American Life, Tin House,
and elsewhere. She is the Director of Communications for Measures for Justice.
John Cameron Mitchell is the co-creator of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. He also directed the films Shortbus, Rabbit Hole, and How to Talk to Girls at Parties. His TV acting credits include Shrill, Girls, Mozart in the Jungle, and The Good Fight. He's toured internationally with The Origin of Love: The Songs and Stories of Hedwig. Mitchell is the co-creator of the musical podcast series Anthem: Homunculus with Bryan Weller, featuring himself, Glenn Close, Denis O'Hare, Patti Lupone, Cynthia Erivo, and Nakhane. His ongoing music project is New American Dream, a collaboration with Ezra Furman, Alynda Segarra, Wynton Marsalis, and many others.
Josh Radnor is best known for his leading role on the CBS Emmy-nominated series How I Met Your Mother. Following its nine-year run, he starred in the PBS Civil War drama Mercy Street and in the NBC series Rise, and currently stars alongside Al Pacino in the Amazon series Hunters. As a filmmaker, he wrote, directed, and starred in happythankyoumoreplease and Liberal Arts, both of which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to great acclaim, the former winning the 2010 Audience Award. Additional films include Social Animals, The Seeker, and Joey Soloway’s debut feature Afternoon Delight. His theater credits include the Broadway run of Ayad Akhtar’s Pulitzer-Prize winning drama Disgraced and the world premiere of Richard Greenberg’s The Babylon Line at Lincoln Center, as well as Little Shop of Horrors at The Kennedy Center. He also writes and records music with his friend Ben Lee as the duo Radnor & Lee.
Miriam Shor stars in the hit Paramount Network series Younger, for which she received a Critics’ Choice nomination. Additional television credits include notable roles in Mrs. America, The Americans, The Good Wife, GCB, Swingtown, Mildred Pierce, and Damages. On stage, Shor has starred in productions of Merrily We Roll Along; Almost, Maine; Scarcity;The Wild Party; and Sweat. She made her off-Broadway debut in Hedwig and the Angry Inch and also starred in the film adaptation. Shor can currently be seen in George Clooney’s feature film The Midnight Sky, and Lost Girls, directed by Oscar-nominee Liz Garbus.
CREDITS
“The South Asian Speakers Series Presents the Archeologist and Adventurer Indiana Jones” by Tania James, from The New Yorker (August 2020). Copyright © 2020 by Tania James. Used by permission of Aragi Inc. This story can be read online at The New Yorker.
“Today, You’re a Black Revolutionary” by Jade Jones, from The Rumpus (June 2018). Copyright © 2018 by Jade Jones. Used by permission of the author. This story can be read online at The Rumpus.
“On a Day Tammy Had Not Eaten Enough Yellow” by Kenneth Calhoun, from No Tokens Journal. Copyright © 2018 by Kenneth Calhoun. Used by permission of the author. This story can be read online at No Tokens Journal.
“Let’s Go to the Videotape” by Fiona Maazel, from Harper's (June 2016). Copyright © 2016 by Fiona Maazel. Used by permission of the Janklow & Nesbit. This story can be read online at Harper's.
Selected Shorts is supported by the Dungannon Foundation, creator of The Rea Award for the Short Story. Support is also provided by the Howard Gilman Foundation, the NYC COVID-19 Response and Impact Fund in The New York Community Trust, The Shubert Foundation, the Charina Endowment Fund, the Henry Nias Foundation, the Consolidated Edison Company of New York, the Vidda Foundation, the Axe-Houghton Foundation, the Lemberg Foundation, and The Grodzins Fund. Selected Shorts is also made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts, and with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. Symphony Space thanks our generous supporters, including our Board of Directors, Producers Circle, and members, who make our programs possible with their annual support.
Expected Run Time is 90 minutes
