(NEWARK, NJ) -- New Jersey Performing Arts Center announced the complete cast of its one-time dramatic reading of the late Philip Roth’s bestselling novel The Plot Against America featuring some of the most esteemed actors working today in a monumental performance at the center of PHILIP ROTH UNBOUND: Illuminating a Literary Legacy, NJPAC’s three-day celebration of the iconic writer.
On March 19, 2023 at 1:00pm, actors Sam Waterston, André De Shields, Tony Shalhoub, S. Epatha Merkerson, Eric Bogosian, Peter Riegert, Michael Benjamin Washington, Marjan Neshat and Deirdre O’Connell will deliver a transcendent three-act presentation of Roth’s chilling novel, adapted for the stage by renowned Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro and co-presented with 92nd Street Y, New York.
The Plot Against America is just one of four ticketed dramatic performances that will take place over of the course of the weekend, which will also include a preview of select scenes from John Turturro and Ariel Levy’s theatrical adaptation of Roth’s National Book Award-winning novel Sabbath’s Theater, featuring John Turturro and Jason Kravits; “Defender of the Faith,” one of Roth’s earliest and most beloved — and most controversial — short stories, read by Morgan Spector; and a pair of dramatic readings that feature two of Roth’s most brilliant reflections on his hometown of Newark, performed by Matthew Broderick and Peter Riegert.
Complementing this remarkable collection of dramatic talent will be a compelling roster of more than 25 of today’s most influential writers and thinkers engaging in an array of discussions and debates designed to explore the significance and impact of Roth’s singular literary output. Among the array of authors adding their voices to these conversations are Gary Shteyngart, Francine Prose, Sean Wilentz, Ayad Akhtar, Ottessa Moshfegh, Philip Gourevitch, Darryl Pinckney, Susan Choi, Jean Hanff Korelitz, Claudia Roth Pierpont and Meghan Daum.
For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit click here.
The festival’s full event schedule includes:
Friday, March 17:
9:00am-5:00pm, Newark Public Library. Audio Tour, an exclusive audio tour of the Philip Roth Personal Library, narrated by actor Morgan Spector (HBO’s The Gilded Age and Plot Against America). Bequeathed to the Library when Roth died in 2018, this unique collection houses the 7,000 books Roth collected over a lifetime, many of which include his handwritten notes and underlinings.
4:00pm, Newark Public Library - Philip Roth: Reading Myself and Others, featuring author Claudia Roth Pierpont and historians Sean Wilentz and Steven Zipperstein in an exploration of the writers and thinkers who most influenced Roth, from the sports and adventure stories that captivated him as a boy to the novels of Tolstoy, Joyce, Colette and Kafka, as well as the works of history that informed his late-career fiction.
7:00pm, Victoria Theater, Lizzie & Jonathan Tisch Stage - Newark in Roth’s Life, Work and Imagination, featuring actors Matthew Broderick and Peter Riegert performing dramatic readings of “‘I Always Wanted You to Admire My Fasting’; or, Looking at Kafka” and “The Ruthless Intimacy of Fiction,” by Philip Roth.
9:00pm, The Chase Room - My Newark, featuring playwrights Chisa Hutchinson and Richard Wesley, poets Jasmine Mans and Dimitri Reyes, and author Mikki Taylor in a showcase of original stories by contemporary Newark storytellers, along with readings by the high school student winners of the “Your Newark Story” citywide writing contest.
Saturday, March 18:
9:00am-5:00pm, Newark Public Library / Audio Tour
10:00am, departing from NJPAC
Philip Roth Bus Tour of Newark: A guided bus tour of Roth’s Newark led by President of Newark Landmarks Committee Liz Del Tufo that visits locations and places significant to the novelist and his characters, including his birthplace.
10:00 am, The Chase Room - Letting the Repellent In: Philip Roth and the Art of Outrage, featuring authors Ayad Akhtar, Susan Choi, Ottessa Moshfegh and Gary Shteyngart in a provocative panel on the cathartic power of discomfort.
1:00pm, The Chase Room - “Defender of the Faith”, featuring actor Morgan Spector in a dramatic reading of one of Roth’s earliest and boldest stories, published to both acclaim and outrage in 1959.
3:30pm, The Chase Room - What Gives You the Right? A Conversation about Representation, Imagination, Empathy, and Exploitation, featuring authors Meghan Daum, Jean Hanff Korelitz, Lauren Michele Jackson and Hanna Rosin in a panel discussion on the ethics of representation and identity, and the limits of artistic freedom.
7:00pm, The Chase Room - Facts, Fiction and Literary Friendship, featuring authors Bernard Avishai, Philip Gourevitch and Lisa Halliday, and Leon Botstein, President of Bard College in an intimate panel featuring fellow writers and long-time friends reflecting on their relationships with the legendary writer.
8:00pm, Hobby’s Delicatessen - Stand-up and Challah! featuring comedians Eddie Brill, Ariel Elias, and Phil Hanley in a night of comedy, kibitzing and noshing at Hobby’s Delicatessen.
Sunday, March 19:
10:00am-1:00pm, Newark Public Library / Audio Tour
10:00am, departing from NJPAC / Philip Roth Bus Tour of Newark
10:00am, The Chase Room - American Berserk: History, Democracy and the Relentless Unforeseen, featuring historian Sean Wilentz, authors Darryl Pinckney and Francine Prose, and literary critic Parul Sehgal in a timely conversation, building on Roth’s belief that history is fragile and unpredictable.
1:00pm, Victoria Theater, Lizzie & Jonathan Tisch Stage - The Plot Against America, featuring Eric Bogosian, André De Shields, S. Epatha Merkerson, Marjan Neshat, Deirdre O’Connell, Peter Riegert, Tony Shalhoub, Michael Benjamin Washington and Sam Waterston, in a dramatic reading of The Plot Against America, co-presented by the 92nd Street Y, New York.
6:30pm, The Chase Room - Sabbath’s Theater: A Philip Roth 90th Birthday Celebration: John Turturro and Jason Kravits will perform select scenes in a sneak preview of Turturro and Ariel Levy’s stage adaptation of Sabbath’s Theater. A post-performance conversation with Turturro and Levy, moderated by NPR’s Scott Simon will follow. The event will also include pre-performance cocktails, cake and live music to celebrate what would have been Roth’s 90th birthday.
PHILIP ROTH UNBOUND is produced by New Jersey Performing Arts Center and co-produced by Newark Public Library Trustee Rosemary Steinbaum and publishing and media executive Cary Goldstein. James Shapiro, the Larry Miller Professor of English at Columbia and Shakespeare Scholar in Residence at the Public Theater, serves as Literary Advisor to the festival, with additional curation from Bernard Schwartz, Director of the Unterberg Poetry Center at the 92nd Street Y, New York. The Festival is supported by Sharon and Jon Corzine, The M & T Weiner Foundation and Judith Lieberman.
Philip Roth won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel American Pastoral in 1997, the National Medal of Arts at the White House in 1998, and, in 2002, the highest award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gold Medal in Fiction. Roth received two National Book Awards and two National Book Critics Circle Awards, and won three PEN/Faulkner Awards. In 2005 The Plot Against America received the Society of American Historians’ Prize for “the outstanding historical novel on an American theme for 2003–2004,” and was later adapted by David Simon for an HBO miniseries. In 2011 he was given the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama at the White House, and was later named the fourth recipient of the Man Booker International Prize. Roth died in 2018.
New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), located in downtown Newark, New Jersey, is among the largest performing arts centers in the United States. It is the artistic, cultural, educational, and civic center of New Jersey—where great performances and events enhance and transform lives every day. As New Jersey’s town square, NJPAC brings diverse communities together, providing access to all and showcasing the state’s and the world’s best artists, while acting as a leading catalyst in the revitalization of its home city. Through its extensive arts education programs, NJPAC is shaping the next generation of artists and arts enthusiasts. NJPAC has attracted 11 million visitors (including almost two million children) since opening its doors in 1997, and nurtures meaningful and lasting relationships with each of its constituents.
Newark Public Library, home of the Philip Roth Personal Library, is located at 5 Washington Street in downtown Newark, NJ. Built in 1899 with a design inspired by a 15th century Florence palazzo, it is New Jersey’s most comprehensive public library, serving thousands of patrons per week and providing equitable access to vast educational, cultural, literary, historical and digital resources. The library’s major departments include its Reference Center; Special Collections which includes graphic and visual arts; the Charles F. Cummings New Jersey Information Center; the New Jersey Hispanic Research and Information Center and the James Brown African American Room, noted for their collections of books and archives; and the LGBTQ Resource Center. In May 2022 the makerspace Made@NPL was created to meet the needs of Newark’s artisan microentrepreneurs and small business owners.
