TNT benefit to feature Austin Pendleton Feb. 10

Youngstown State University’s Cliffe College of Creative Arts will host “An Evening with Austin Pendleton” 7 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 10 in Bliss Hall’s Ford Theater on the YSU campus.

The event will benefit Trumbull New Theatre, an organization that Pendleton, a Warren native, has supported his entire life as an actor, director and patron.

Tickets are all general admission and $20 each, available online at www.ysu. tix.com, by calling the University Theatre Box Office at 330-941-310 or at the door prior to the production.

The event’s unscripted and casual format will include Pendleton talking about his extraordinary professional life.

“Welcoming Austin Pendleton to Bliss Hall for an event to benefit Trumbull New Theatre speaks to the importance of our continued collaborations with our greater arts and cultural community,” said Dr. Phyllis M. Paul, dean of the Cliffe College of Creative Arts.

“Mr. Pendleton is a legendary stage and film professional who cultivated his love for the arts as a child here in the Valley. ‘An Evening with Austin Pendleton’ will be entertaining, informative and fun.”

Pendleton is an actor, director, and playwright. He graduated from The University School in Shaker Heights and from Yale in 1961.

He has made hundreds of appearances in film and TV and appeared several times in such TV shows as “Homicide,” ”Oz,” and “Law and Order.” His film credits include “A Beautiful Mind,” “Finding Dory,” “Finding Nemo,”

“Christmas with the Kranks,” “Amistad” and others. He has acted on Broadway (“Choir Boy” at Manhattan Theatre Club; “The Diary of Anne Frank” (with Natalie Portman); and as Motel the Tailor in the original cast of “Fiddler on the Roof.”

As director, he has been represented by the premiere productions of “A Thousand Pines,” by Matthew Greene; “Between Riverside and Crazy,” by Stephen Adly Giurgis, which went on to win the Pulitzer Prize; “Fifty Words,” by Michael Weller, with Elizabeth Marvel and Norbert Leo Butz; Chekhov productions at Classic Stage Company such as “Three Sisters” (for which he won the Obie), “Ivanov, which starred Ethan Hawke, and Uncle Vanya, with Mamie Gummer; “A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur,” by Tennessee Williams, with Kristine Nielsen and Annette O’Toole; “War of the Roses” (Shakespeare, at HB Studio); “Hamlet” (also at CSC, with Peter Sarsgaard); “The Little Foxes,” on Broadway, with Elizabeth Taylor and Maureen Stapleton (five Tony nominations, one for direction and three for actors, including Taylor and Stapleton).

He has written three plays: “Orson’s Shadow” (which ran off-Broadway for a year and was then staged in London); “Uncle Bob,” (which ran at the Mint Theatre in New York, and was then produced in Paris, translated by Jean-Marie Besset), and “Booth,” which was staged in New York starring Frank Langella. He has taught at HB Studio in New York since 1969.

“We so appreciate the generosity and kindness offered by YSU Cliffe College of Creative Arts and Austin Pendleton to benefit Trumbull New Theatre. TNT is proud to call Austin’s mother, Frances, a founder of our theater. We look forward to continuing the mission set before us by sharing our passion for theatre and fostering that same fervor within our community for years to come,” said Melanie Lucas, TNT president.

More information is available by calling the Office of Community Engagement and Events at 330-727-7514.

Austin Pendleton