George Bartenieff & Playwright Karen Malpede: Theater on Climate Change

Wednesday, October 8, 6pm EDT: This weeks guest are George Bartenieff and KarenMalpede, of the theatrical performance Extreme Whether. George Bartenieff, (Uncle) has had one of the more illustrious careers in American theater. At age 14, he made his Broadway debut in The Whole World Over, directed by Harold Clurman with Uta Hagen and Herbert Bergoff. At age 16, he was again on Broadway in Lillian Hellman’s Monsteraat, directed by the author, with Julie Harris and Emlyn Williams. He then left the United States to study at RADA and the Guildhall. Returning to New York, he starred as Peter in Edward Albee’s Zoo Story and Krapp in Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, at the Cherry Lane Theatre, directed by Alan Schneider. He went on to leading roles with the most influential avant-garde theaters in New York: the Judson Poet’s Theater, The LivingTheatre, Bread and Puppet, Joseph Papp’s Public Theater, Mabou Mines. In 1970, he co-founded Theater for the New City where he acted in and produced over 400 new plays for the American theater, including premieres of major works of Sam Shepard and Maria Irene Fornes. In 1987, he starred in Us by Karen Malpede, directed by Judith Malina and won an Obie for Susatained Excellence as an Actor. He would win an Obie for Acting again for I Will Bear Witness, adapted with Malpede and directed by her. Extreme Whether marks their ninth collaboration.  Karen Malpede (Playwright/Director) is author of 17 plays; she has directed premieres of nine of them. Her most recent, a post-9/11 trilogy, are: Another Life (New York, London) a surreal retelling of the U.S. torture program; Prophecy (New York, London, Berlin) about the cost of war to veterans and those who love them; Iraq: Speaking of War (New York) a docu-drama.