(AGENPARL) – mar 13 giugno 2023 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 13, 2023
Post-Show Talkback Announced For
Whitman in Love
Live Oak, with Moss & Other Poems
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Presented by
The Merchant’s House Museum
Conceived and Performed by
John Kevin Jones
(A Christmas Carol at the Merchant’s House)
4 Performances Only Next Week!
Wednesday, June 21 – Saturday, June 24
at the Merchant’s House Museum
Selznick and Karbiener, who collaborated on the book of newly discovered Walt Whitman poetry Live Oak, with Moss, will appear following Friday, June 23 at 7PM performance.
Half a century following Whitman’s 1892 passing, a secret notebook was discovered containing an early 12-poem series titled "Live Oak, with Moss" which had been heavily revised and incorporated into his later opus “Leaves of Grass.” Performed by Jones, the original series of unrevised poems reveals Whitman’s intimate emotions and his deep vulnerability as he daringly traces a searing romantic relationship with another man. This poem cycle confirms Whitman as a queer icon of his time, and Whitman in Love honors this hidden legacy of “America’s poet.”
Walt Whitman’s life in New York City brought him frequently to the neighborhood of the Merchant’s House. Whitman took nightly refuge at the bohemian Pfaff’s beer cellar, on Broadway at Bleecker Street, where he met his love Fred Vaughan, who inspired some of Whitman’s most romantic verse.
The production’s performance schedule is:
· Wednesday, June 21 at 7PM
· Thursday, June 22 at 7PM
· Friday, June 23 at 7PM – followed by a post-show talkback with Brian Selznick and Karen Karbiener
· Saturday, June 24 at 7PM
JOHN KEVIN JONES. Kevin is a member of Actors Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild, and the Dramatists Guild of America. New York: A Christmas Carol at the Merchant’s House, Killing an Evening with Edgar Allen Poe (Summoners Ensemble), Nothing But Trash (TFTNC), Jeffrey (Lincoln Center), The Winter’s Tale and The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Hipgnosis Theatre). Regional: The Pavilion (American Stage), Othello (Arkansas Rep), The Rivals, All My Sons (Kentucky Rep), Angels in America, Gross Indecency (Playhouse on the Square). BA in Theatre Performance from the University of South Florida and MFA in Theatre Directing from the University of Memphis.
MERCHANT’S HOUSE MUSEUM. Built in 1832, the Merchant’s House is New York City’s only 19th century family home preserved virtually intact, with original family furnishings and personal belongings. A unique survivor of Old New York, the House offers an intimate glimpse of how a prosperous merchant family and their Irish servants lived from 1835-1865, when New York City grew from seaport to thriving metropolis.
The Merchant’s House is a National Historic Landmark and in New York City is distinguished as one of only 121 buildings that have NYC landmark status for both its exterior and interior.
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