Guest host Cynthia Nixon presents two stories about unusual family members. In Alix Ohlin’s “The Cruise,” a heartsick divorcee travels with her unconventional aunt. Laura Benanti reads. An elderly dog is “A Permanent Member of the Family,” and a bone of contention, in this Russell Banks story performed by Zach Grenier.
ACTORS & ARTISTS
A prolific writer of fiction, Russell Banks’s works include The Darling, The Sweet Hereafter, Cloudsplitter, Rule of the Bone, Affliction, Success Stories, Continental Drift, Searching for Survivors, Trailerpark, The Book of Jamaica, The New World, Hamilton Stark, The Reserve, Lost Memory of Skin, and A Permanent Member of the Family. He is also the author of Dreaming Up America, an American edition of his nonfiction book of essays. Banks has contributed poems, stories, and essays to The Boston Globe Magazine, Vanity Fair, The New York Times Book Review, Esquire, Harper’s, and numerous others. He is the winner of the 2011 Common Wealth Award for Literature. In 2011, the French Minister of Culture awarded him the rank of Officier des Arts et Lettres. In 2014 he was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame. Banks’s most recent book is the memoir Voyager.
Laura Benanti was honored with the Tony Award for Gypsy and won Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards for her performance in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Additional Broadway credits include Into the Woods, In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), She Loves Me, Meteor Shower, and My Fair Lady. She has been featured on screen in Nurse Jackie, The Good Wife, Nashville, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, The Sound of Music Live!, Supergirl, The Detour, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Younger, and Worth. Benanti will appear in the forthcoming film Here Today.
Zach Grenier received a Tony nomination for Moisés Kaufman’s 33 Variations for his performance as Ludwig van Beethoven. He’s known on television for portraying David Lee on CBS’s The Good Wife, a role that he has reprised on The Good Fight for CBS All Access. His most recent television credits include Ray Donovan and the miniseries Devs. Films include Fight Club, Zodiac, and Ride with the Devil, as well as the forthcoming The Vizitant. His favorite stage role is Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, which he played at the Pittsburgh Public Theater.
Cynthia Nixon made her film debut in Little Darlings at 12 years old and her Broadway debut at 14 in The Philadelphia Story. Since then she’s appeared in more than 40 plays, scores of films and television shows, and received 2 Emmys, 2 Tonys, and a Grammy Award. She is best known for her role as Miranda on HBO’s Sex and the City. In 2017, Nixon alternated the roles of Regina and Birdie with Laura Linney in Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes on Broadway, winning her 2nd Tony Award. She also appeared on numerous "best actress of 2018" lists for her portrayal of American poet Emily Dickinson in Terrence Davies' much-lauded film A Quiet Passion. Also in 2018 she ran for Governor of New York state. Nixon will star in the forthcoming television series Ratched and The Gilded Age. She spends a good portion of her off-time fighting for funding for New York public schools, abortion rights, and LGBT equality. She and her wife, Christine, have 3 children: Sam, Charlie, and Max.
Alix Ohlin is the author of two short story collections, Babylon and Other Stories and Signs and Wonders, three novels, The Missing Person, Inside, and most recently, Dual Citizens, which was a finalist for the Giller Prize and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. Her work has appeared in Best American Short Stories, Best New American Voices, The New Yorker, The Walrus, and Tin House, among other publications. She currently chairs the creative writing program at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
