ANN, the life story of Texas governor Ann Richards, will star Emmy Award winner Holland Taylor and premiere on Friday, June 19th, 2020. GLORIA: A LIFE, the life story of uber-feminist Gloria Steinem, will star Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner Christine Lahti and premiere on Friday, June 26th, 2020.
Christine Lahti and company.
(Photo: © Joan Marcus)
GREAT PERFORMANCES: ANN was written by Holland Taylor and directed for the stage by Benjamin Endsley Klein. It was recorded at the Zach Theater in Austin, Texas, following its national tour and Broadway run at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater in 2013. The role of Ann Richards won Holland Taylor a Tony Award nomination for Best Lead Actress in a Play.
GREAT PERFORMANCES: GLORIA: A LIFE was written by Tony Award nominee Emily Mann, directed for the stage by Tony Award winner Diane Paulus, and produced by Pulitzer Prize- and 10-time Tony Award-winning producer Daryl Roth.
Major funding for GLORIA: A LIFE is provided by the Ford Foundation. Major funding for GREAT PERFORMANCES is provided by The Joseph and Robert Connell Memorial Foundation, the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Arts Fund, the Irene Diamond Fund, Rosalind P. Walter, the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust, the Starr Foundation, the Kate W. Cassidy Foundation, the Thea Petschek Iervolino Foundation, Seton J. Melvin, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, and PBS.
David Horn chatted at length with Holland Taylor and Christine Lahti about their PBS projects at a panel taking place on Monday, January 10th at the Winter 2020 TCA Press Tours held at the Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena. Public speeches will combine with private conversations during both of these great performances! Taylor and Lahti were both the driving forces in bringing their respective plays to life according to Horn.
Lahti said that many other features about Gloria Steinem besides GLORIA: A LIFE would be shown during this women’s centennial year. “She’s everywhere and she needs to be everywhere,” Lahti said. The famous talking circles created by Steinem are re-created in the two-act play.
Talking circles notwithstanding, Gloria Steinem started off as a writer and was always apprehensive about public speaking. Ann Richards, by way of contrast, was a natural speaker who was always the life of any party. Holland Taylor found it fascinating to write a play about a political figure who was herself a live performer.
“I think that in some ways Trump is the gift that the keeps on giving in terms of people finding their activism,” mused Lahti. The historic Women’s March in Washington and the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements show that the activist spirit is still alive and well in the good old USA.
Christine Lahti concluded, “We want to teach our daughters about these women because we can never forget the hard work that was done and how much more work we have to do.” Both she and Holland Taylor were thrilled to be part of the PBS women’s centennial celebration so their own work could reach a wider audience.
Ann Richards and Gloria Steinem shared a fundamental belief that all human beings should be treated equally and that government can be good. And this, of course, is the impetus for both PBS plays!
Please tune in to ANN and GLORIA: A LIFE on PBS GREAT PERFORMANCES in June for further inspiration.