DOORS OPEN AT 6:30PM
ISSUE Project Room, Stephen Ruddy, and NYRB Classics present a Brooklyn Book Festival 2012 Bookend Event:
Stephen Ruddy, director of Upright Citizens Brigade’s “Gravid Water” directs a dramatic reading of Brooklyn author Raymond Kennedy’s darkly comic 1991 novel Ride a Cockhorse, recently reprinted by NYRB Classics. Forty-five-year-old Frances Fitzgibbons has gone from sweet-tempered bank loan officer to insatiable force of nature almost overnight. Suddenly she’s brazenly seducing the high-school drum major, taking over her boss’s office, firing anyone who crosses her, inspiring populist fervor, and publicly announcing plans to crush her local rivals en route to dominating the entire banking industry in the northeast.
Stephen Ruddy has directed Amy Poehler, Michael Cera, Jason Sudeikis, Megan Mullally, David Cross, Nick Offerman, Cristin Milioti, Scott Adsit, and other theater and comedy luminaries in Gravid Water, the show he created for the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in 2004. The show is performed monthly in UCB's NY and LA theaters. Stephen also directs for The 52nd Street Project and NYU Graduate Acting’s FreePlay series, and is a member of the curatorial committee of The Moth, the Peabody Award-winning storytelling organization.
Established in 2006, ISSUE's Littoral program is a free public reading series spotlighting writers experimenting with new forms and approaches to poetry, fiction, and essays. Responding to a declining network of support for innovative experimental literature outside academic institutions, Littoral serves as a central hub for fostering cutting-edge writers, publishers, and literary journals.
