SELECTED SHORTS

Sunday, April 21, 2024 at 7pm

This performance will include a 15-minute intermission.

Yetide Badaki
Melora Hardin
Gildart Jackson
Justin Kirk

Hosted by Melora Hardin

The Summer Reading List by Meg Wolitzer
Performed by Melora Hardin

Mindless in America by Kenneth Calhoun
Performed by Justin Kirk

-INTERMISSION-

Henosis by N. K. Jemisin
Performed by Yetide Badaki

Fule’s Gold by Joanne Harris
Performed by Gildart Jackson

Yetide Badaki is a Nigerian-born actress known for the Starz fantasy drama American Gods, as well as appearances on Lost, Touch, Criminal Minds, Masters of Sex, and This Is Us. She will be executive producing and starring as the title role in Queen Nzinga on Starz. As a theater actress in Chicago, Badaki won acclaim for her performances at the Victory Gardens Theater and Steppenwolf. She won Best Actress for her role  in the film Precipice at the Indie Short Fest. Badaki can currently be seen in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Her film credits include RISE, Cardinal X, A Chance of Rain, What We Found, and Run Fast.

Kenneth Calhoun’s stories have appeared in Ploughshares, Tin House, the Paris Review, New England Review, Subtropics, the O. Henry Story Prize anthology and elsewhere. His novel, Black Moon, was longlisted for the PEN/Bingham Debut Novel Prize in 2015. 

Melora Hardin starred in Amazon’s Transparent in her Emmy-nominated role as Tammy Cashman, as Jacqueline Carlyle in Freeform’s The Bold Type, and is recognized worldwide as Jan Levinson from NBC’s The Office. Hardin also directed The Bold Type and received a Best Director Women’s Image Award nomination for her episode. She starred in the first one-woman movie ever, Golden Vanity, which has garnered seven awards in the first six festivals it’s played at, including three Best Actress and two Audience Awards. Her extensive big-screen credits include 17 Again, Hannah Montana: The Movie, 27 Dresses, The Hot Chick, Absolute Power, and You, which she also directed. Hardin has been a professional actor since she was six years old and has guest starred and recurred on TV favorites such as Little House on the Prairie, The Love Boat (the original), Magnum P.I., Friends, Gilmore Girls, Monk, The Blacklist, Scandal, A Million Little Things, and stars in Love, Classified on the Hallmark Channel. Melora reprised her role as Trudy Monk in Mr. Monk's Last Case, the Golden Globe and Critics Choice–nominated movie streaming now on NBC Peacock.  Hardin is currently directing––and also appears in––the documentary Hunter’s Thunder (working title). She is also a collage artist, recently had her first gallery show of her fine art collages (https://www.galerieleroyer.com/artists/melora-hardin ), and has turned her fine art collages into a line of bold and beautiful wallpaper, Storyboards by Melora Hardin, which can be found on her website www.Melora.com and on Instagram @storyboardsbymelorahardin and @MeloraDHardin.

Joanne Harris is the internationally renowned and award-winning author of eighteen novels, plus novellas, scripts, short stories, libretti, lyrics, and articles, including a self-help book for writers, Ten Things About Writing. In 2000, her 1999 novel Chocolat was adapted to the screen, starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. She is an honorary Fellow of St Catharine's College, Cambridge, and is Chair of the Society of Authors. Her latest novel, the thriller A Narrow Door, was published in 2022. 

Gildart Jackson is best known for his role as Giles the Host/Butler on the ABC hit reality series Whodunnit? His film and television credits include The Big Brass Ring, General Hospital, Providence, Charmed, You, Atlas Shrugged: Part II, Burn Notice, Supernatural, The Young and the Restless, Feud, and The Bold Type. He has been featured on stage in regional productions of The Seagull, My Fair Lady, Private Eyes, and Tempest Redux. He has also narrated numerous audiobooks, including The Son by Jo Nesbø and You Will Not Have My Hate by Antoine Leiris. He has won an Audie, been nominated twice more, and has received numerous additional audiobook awards. During the Covid lockdown, Jackson began Fireside Reading. Every day at 5PM PT on Instagram @firesidereading he reads live for free to anyone who might like to join him. Fireside Reading has grown in wonderful ways, and if you’d like, please check it out at www.firesidereading.com. 

N. K. Jemisin is an award-winning science fiction and fantasy author whose works include the novels The World We Make, The City We Became, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, The Killing Moon, The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, The Stone Sky, and the short story collection How Long ’Til Black Future Month? Jemisin is the first author to win three consecutive Hugo Awards, as well as the Locus and Nebula awards. Her fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Tor.com, Weird Tales, WIRED, Helix, Strange Horizons, Popular Science, and The New York Times Book Review, among other publications. 

Justin Kirk is best known for his roles on the television shows Succession, Perry Mason, Weeds, Jack & Jill, and the miniseries Angels in America. Additional screen credits include Modern Family, The Blacklist, Wayward Pines, You’re the Worst, Ghostbusters (2016), APB, Molly’s Game, Vice, and Kidding.  He has appeared on Broadway in Any Given Day, Love! Valour! Compassion!, Other Desert Cities, and at the Geffen Playhouse in Old Wicked Songs and These Paper Bullets. 

Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times bestselling author of The Female Persuasion, The Interestings, The Ten-Year Nap, and The Wife, which was adapted to film in 2018, starring Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce. She was the guest editor of The Best American Short Stories 2017, and has also published books for young readers, mostly recently a picture book, Millions of Maxes. Wolitzer is a faculty member in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton, where she co-founded and co-directs BookEnds, a one-year, non-credit intensive in the novel. She is also the host of the Selected Shorts radio show and podcast. 

“The Summer Reading List,” by Meg Wolitzer, from Summer (Addison Wesley, 1990). Copyright © 1990 by Meg Wolitzer. Used by permission of the author.

“Mindless in America,” by Kenneth Calhoun. Commissioned by Symphony Space. Copyright © 2023 by Kenneth Calhoun and Symphony Space.

“Henosis,” by N.K. Jemisin, from How Long ‘til Black Future Month? (Orbit Books, 2018). Copyright © 2018 by N. K. Jemisin. Used by permission of the author.

“Fule’s Gold,” from Jigs & Reels by Joanne Harris. Copyright © Joanne Harris. Used by permission of the author c/o Rogers, Coleridge & White Ltd., 20 Powis Mews, London W11 1JN. 

Jennifer Brennan Director of Literary Programs
Drew Richardson Lead Producer of Literary Programs
Vivienne Woodward Producer of Literary Programs
Mary Shimkin Director of Broadcast & Literary Initiatives
Sarah Montague Selected Shorts Radio Producer
Jenny Falcon Selected Shorts Radio Producer
Miles B. Smith Selected Shorts Recording Engineer
Matthew Love Consultant for Literary Programs
Magdalene Wrobleski Literary Assistant
Mollie Gordon Program Assistant
Sophia Raimondi Literary Intern
Lulu Chatterjee Literary Intern

Selected Shorts is supported by the Dungannon Foundation, creator of The Rea Award for the Short Story. This program is also made possible by the generous support of Susan Bay Nimoy, Estate of Douglas M. Matheson, Seedlings Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, MacMillan Family Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund, Charina Endowment Fund, Henry Nias Foundation, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, PECO Foundation, Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina, Mustang Foundation, Michael Tuch Foundation, Axe-Houghton Foundation, Jody and John Arnhold and the Arnhold Foundation, The Grodzins Fund, The Isambard Kingdom Brunel Society of North America, and Theatre Development Fund. Symphony Space thanks our generous supporters, including our Board of Directors, Producers Circle, and members, who make our programs possible with their annual support.

Exclusive management for Selected Shorts: 
Alliance Artist Management 5030 Broadway, Suite 812, New York NY 10034

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Professor Emeritus Physics and Astronomy
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James Mai
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Kathleen Treseder, Ph.D.
Stuart Winston
Anu Worah

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