2011/12 season > Selected Shorts

Selected Shorts
Live in Performance:

“Delicious Fictions”

special presentation | roda theatre
only two performances!

Sunday, April 1, 2012 / 2 & 7pm

Running time: 2 hours, including one 15 minute intermission

Healthy Start by Etgar Keret
Performed by Michael Tucker

Enough by Alice McDermott
Performed by Jill Eikenberry

Taste by Roald Dahl
Performed by Isaiah Sheffer

The hit public radio series tours to Berkeley Rep! Jill Eikenberry and Michael Tucker (longtime leads of the hit TV series L.A. Law) join host Isaiah Sheffer to perform a trio of luscious, hilarious and provocative tales of food and love by wildly inventive Israeli writer and filmmaker Etgar Keret, Irish-American author of delicious family stories Alice McDermott, and classic master of the tale with a twist, Roald Dahl. Audiences can enjoy Selected Shorts live in performance on April 1 at 2pm and 7pm in the Roda Theatre. This event is produced by Berkeley Rep in association with Jonathan Reinis Productions.

“One of the finest evenings at the theatre!”—David Sedaris

“The angel of the short story.”—Grace Paley

who’s who

Roald Dahl (1916–1990) was born in Wales of Norwegian parents and lived in England. He is the author of many acclaimed short stories, a number of brilliant film scripts and several celebrated children’s books, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach and Mathilda.

Jill Eikenberry has a long list of theatre, film and television credits. She is best known for portraying Ann Kelsey on NBC’s LA Law, which earned her four Emmy nominations, two Golden Globe nominations and a Golden Globe Award. Since making her feature film debut in 1976, she’s been seen in everything from Arthur and The Manhattan Project to Something Borrowed and Young Adult. Her Broadway credits began with Moonchildren and went on to include Onward Victoria, Summer Brave, Watch on the Rhine and All Over Town, directed by Dustin Hoffman. Eikenberry was honored with an Obie Award for Lemon Sky and Life Under Water, and her recent off-Broadway appearances include A Picasso, Enter Laughing and The Kid. Seen in Wendy Wasserstein’s Uncommon Women and Others, she reprised that role opposite Meryl Streep in the PBS film. Her regional credits include the Arena Stage, Long Wharf Theatre, Marin Theatre Company and Yale Repertory Theatre, and local audiences will recall Eikenberry from The Vagina Monologues at Circle in the Square and the Napa Valley Opera House.

A veteran stage, film and television actor, Michael Tucker is best known for his role as Stuart Markowitz on LA Law. His eight-year stint on the popular NBC drama brought him three Emmy nominations and two Golden Globe nominations. His Broadway credits include The Goodbye People, Moonchildren and Trelawny of the Wells with John Lithgow, Mandy Patinkin and Meryl Streep. He performed principal roles in The Comedy of Errors, The Merry Wives of Windsor and Measure for Measure for Joe Papp in Central Park. His other New York credits include Lincoln Center, Manhattan Theatre Club, Playwrights Horizons, the Roundabout Theatre and Second Stage Theatre. Regionally, he’s been seen at Arena Stage, Long Wharf Theatre and Milwaukee Repertory Theater, and he helped reopen the Geary Theatre in San Francisco by performing in The Tempest. Tucker’s film credits include Diner, The Eyes of Laura Mars, Network, A Night Full of Rain, Radio Days, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Tin Men and An Unmarried Woman. He is the author of three books: Family Meals: Coming Together to Care for an Aging Parent, I Never Forget a Meal: An Indulgent Reminiscence and Living in a Foreign Language: A Memoir of Food, Wine, and Love in Italy.

Etgar Keret was born in Tel Aviv and is one of Israel’s bestselling authors, with books published in 29 languages, to international acclaim. They include (in English translation) the collections The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God, The Nimrod Flipout, Missing Kissinger, The Girl on the Fridge, Four Stories. His stories have been published in McSweeney’s, The Paris Review and Zoetrope, and he’s a regular columnist for Tablet Magazine. In 2007, he co-directed his first feature film Jellyfish (“Meduzot”), which won the prestigious Camera d’Or. In 2010, he was honored with the decoration of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and has also been awarded the Prime Minister’s Prize for Literature and the Ministry of Culture’s Cinema Prize. His new collection Suddenly, a Knock on the Door was released this month.

Alice McDermott, born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island, is the author of five novels. Charming Billy was the winner of the National Book Award for Fiction in 1998. At Weddings and Wakes was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, as was That Night, which was also a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pen/Faulkner Award. Her short stories have appeared in such publications as The New Yorker, Ms. Savvy and USA Today. She teaches at Johns Hopkins University.

Isaiah Sheffer is co-founder of Symphony Space and serves as its artistic director, now preparing for the theatre’s 30th anniversary season. At Symphony Space, he hosts and directs the long-running hit series Selected Shorts—live, on tour and in its PRI radio incarnation across the country. He also stages the annual James Joyce celebration “Bloomsday on Broadway,” as he has for the past 26 years. With Martin Sage, Sheffer creates the theatre’s hit political cabaret, The Thalia Follies. Sheffer’s writing for the stage and screen includes the book and lyrics to two successful musicals, The Rise of David Levinsky and Yiddle with a Fiddle, as well as an original play about Isaac Bashevis Singer, Demons and Dreamers, and the libretto for a baroque ballet on the subject of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, A More Perfect Union. In 2006, he launched Symphony Space’s Summer Stock on Broadway with a Rodgers and Hart reconstructed musical, Manhattan Madcaps of 1924 by Jerzy Turnpike. His television writing includes scripts for the PBS series Millennium: The Music of Ten Centuries, and he wrote the screenplay for A Pair of Jokers, which starred Jerry Stiller.

Tuckerberry photo