Breaking Philip Glass
Breaking Philip Glass
A Staged Reading
Written by Israel Horovitz
Jul. 12, 2015
Sun. 6:30 pm (15 minute run-time, followed by a 30 minute talk-back)
Shimberg Playhouse, Straz Center for the Performing Arts
Tickets: $5 donation at the door; FREE to Jobsite Rock Stars and anyone with a ticket to Occupation.
What It's About
Jobsite is thrilled to offer one of the first American readings of a new one-act play by the award-winning, internationally-acclaimed playwright Israel Horovitz after Ken Ferrigni’s Occupation.
In Breaking Philip Glass, Paul confronts an art gallery’s manager about recently-discovered erotic photos to be featured in the gallery’s upcoming exhibition. Paul’s mother is the main female model in the photos, shot 50 years earlier. The gallery does not have permission from Paul’s family to present the photos – but that’s not going to stop the gallery from exhibiting and promoting previously-unseen work by a world renowned photographer.
The play, which runs a bit under 30 minutes, opens in New York on June 14th at New York Theare Workshop as part of an anti-censorship Playwrights for a Cause Project. Breaking Philip Glass is a response to the Charlie Hebdo murders and has generated a lot of discussion in French staged readings. We look forward to a very lively discussion after our performance as well. This is an important topic with no simple solutions.
Jobsite is inviting audiences to take in a double feature of both shows or to just come to the reading. Please note: Horovitz (currently in France) is not attending the event, but reached out to Jobsite to stage a reading of the short play ASAP to keep/force the topic open for discussion.
This is the second collaboration between Jobsite and Horovitz. The company first presented a special evening with the living legend in Feb. with a “rehearsed reading” of his Sins of the Mother that featured a talkback, poetry reading, and book-signing with Horovitz afterward. Jobsite and Horovitz team up again when he visits in January 2016 for a mainstage production of his dark political comedy Lebensraum.
About The Playwright
Israel Horovitz was born in Wakefield, Massachusetts, the son of Hazel Rose (née Solberg) and Julius Charles Horovitz, a trucker who became a lawyer at age 50. Horovitz has five children: film producer Rachael Horovitz, television producer-director Matthew Horovitz, composer/performer Adam Horovitz of the Beastie Boys, grad student Hannah Horovitz and writer/filmmaker Oliver Horovitz. He is married to Gillian Adams, former English national marathon champion and record-holder. Horovitz’s plays have been translated and performed in more than 30 languages, worldwide. His is the author of over 70 plays including Line and Indian Wants the Bronx. Screenplays include My Old Lady, Author! Author!, The Strawberry Statement (Prix du Jury, Cannes Film Festival), Sunshine (European Academy Award – Best Screenplay), New York, I Love You, and Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated James Dean. Horovitz wrote, directed and performed the award-winning documentary 3 Weeks After Paradise.
Awards include the OBIE (twice), the Prix de Plaisir du Théâtre, The Prix Italia (for radio plays), The Sony Radio Academy Award (for Man In Snow), The Writers Guild of Canada Best Screenwriter Award, The Christopher Award, The Drama Desk Award, an Award in Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, The Elliot Norton Prize, a Lifetime Achievement Award from B’Nai Brith, The Literature Prize of Washington College, an honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Salem (Massachusetts) State College, Boston Public Library’s Literary Lights Award, The Walker Hancock Prize, and many others.
Horovitz is Founding Artistic Director of Gloucester Stage Company and is active Artistic Director of the New York Playwrights Lab. He teaches a master class in screenwriting at Columbia University and La Fèmis, France’s national film school, and a playwriting master class at University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Horovitz visits France, frequently, where he often directs French-language productions of his plays. He is the most-produced American playwright in French theatre history, and has recently been decorated as Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France’s highest honor for foreign artists. His memoires Un New-Yorkais a Paris have recently been published in France by Grasset. He also works frequently in Italy, where he is co-Artistic Director of Compagnia Horovitz-Paciotto. The 70/70 Horovitz Project, created by NYC’s Barefoot Theatre, began on Horovitz’s 70th birthday. During the year between 31 March 2009 and 31 March 2010, 70 of Horovitz’s plays were given productions and/or readings by theatres in more than 20 countries around the globe.
