An Evening of Poetry and Discussion with Grace Schulman and Tom Oppenheim

The Harold Clurman Poetry Reading Series presents
An Evening of Poetry and Discussion with Grace Schulman and Tom Oppenheim
Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024 at 7:00 pm

This event is free and open to the public.

Grace Schulman is the recipient of the Frost Medal for Distinguished Lifetime Achievement in the Arts, and a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters, which is considered “the highest form of recognition of artistic merit in this country.” Her ninth and latest book of poems is Again, the Dawn: New and Selected Poems, 1976- 2022. She is the author of a memoir, Strange Paradise: Portrait of a Marriage, and an essay collection, First Loves and Other Adventures. Editor of The Poems of Marianne Moore, she is Distinguished Professor Emerita of English at Baruch College, C.U.N.Y. Among her other honors are the Aiken Taylor Award for poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award, and five Pushcart Prizes. She is the translator, from the Hebrew, of The Poems of T. Carmi, and, from the Spanish, of Songs of Cifar, by Pablo Antonio Cuadra. About her poems, Harold Bloom has written, “Grace Schulman has developed into one of the permanent poets of her generation.” Schulman is former director of the Poetry Center, 92nd Street Y, 1974-84, and former poetry editor of The Nation, 1971-2006.

As artistic director and president of the Stella Adler Studio of Acting for over 25 years, Tom Oppenheim has articulated a mission, engaged top faculty, structured a world-class training program and created a cultural center. He originated the Harold Clurman Laboratory Theater Company in 2002 which has since presented over twenty productions including 11 world premieres. He created MAD (the Harold Clurman Center for New Works in Movement and Dance Theater) a dance theater company that has presented over 30 new works, the majority of which were commissioned world premieres, and which includes Marie Gillis, Bill T. Jones and Mikhail Baryshnikov on the advisory board. He spearheaded the creation of the Harold Clurman Art Series which has presented artists including Harold Bloom, Edward Albee, John Ashbery, Julianne Moore and Harold Mabern in events that are free and open to the public. Under Oppenheim’s leadership, the Stella Adler Arts Justice Division, a program originally designed to educate urban youth, was created. Since 2004, the division has provided free theater training to over 5,000 low income New York City citizens. In addition, the Stella Adler Studio of Acting trains over 600 actors per year. Directorial credits include Michael Milligan’s Mercy Killers (Edinburgh Festival Fringe Fringe First Award 2013); A Bright Room Called Day off-Broadway, As You Like It by William Shakespeare (with Steve Cook), Songs and Statues by Peter Nickowitz (world premiere), Our Town by Thornton Wilder, What Shall I Give My Children? by Don K. Williams (world premiere), Imagining Heschel by Colin Greer (all for the Harold Clurman Laboratory Theater Company). Acting credits include the title role in Shakespeare’s Macbeth as well as Michael in Buzz McLaughlin’s Sister Calling My Name, both with the Harold Clurman Theater Company. Tom co-edited The Muses Go To School (New Press 2012) and his writing is featured in Arthur Bartow’s Training of the American Actor (TCG, 2006). He studied acting at the National Shakespeare Conservatory and with his grandmother, Stella Adler.