Wit & Wisdom is a play conceived and put together by Vivian Gornick

Vivian Gornick

Vivian Gornick is an American critic, essayist, and memoirist. For many years she wrote for the Village Voice. She currently teaches writing at The New School. For the 2007-2008 academic year, she was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University...

 and Nora Eisenberg and done by the Colleagues Theatre Company which premiered at the Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...

 Arclight Theatre

Arclight Theatre

The Arclight Theatre, located at 152 West 71st Street, between Broadway & Columbus Avenues.The theater has a seating capacity of 99 seats and is located on the lower level of The Church of the Blessed Sacrament, down one flight of stairs....

 in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. It ran from March 5 to March 30, 2003.

Plot

The show deals with age and getting older and featured readings from Nâzım Hikmet

Nazim Hikmet

Nâzım Hikmet Ran , commonly known as Nâzım Hikmet , was a Turkish poet, playwright, novelist and memoirist. He was acclaimed for the "lyrical flow of his statements"...

, Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.Coming from a strict Calvinist family, Carlyle was...

, M. F. K. Fisher

M. F. K. Fisher

Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher was a preeminent American food writer. She was also a founder of the Napa Valley Wine Library. She wrote some 27 books, including a translation of The Physiology of Taste by Brillat-Savarin. Two volumes of her journals and correspondence came out shortly before her...

, Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes

James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...

, Arnold Toynbee

Arnold Toynbee

Arnold Toynbee was a British economic historian also noted for his social commitment and desire to improve the living conditions of the working classes.-Biography:...

, William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...

, Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...

, Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker was an American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th century urban foibles....

, Marguerite Duras

Marguerite Duras

Marguerite Donnadieu, better known as Marguerite Duras was a French writer and film director.-Background:...

, Jean Renoir

Jean Renoir

Jean Renoir was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s...

, Colette

Colette

Colette was the surname of the French novelist and performer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette . She is best known for her novel Gigi, upon which Lerner and Loewe based the stage and film musical comedies of the same title.-Early life and marriage:Colette was born to retired military officer Jules-Joseph...

, and Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams

Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...

.

Cast

The staged reading was directed by Don Amendolia

Don Amendolia

Don Amendolia is an American actor most notably recognized from his recurring role as Big Al Kennedy in NBC's soap opera Sunset Beach, recurring role on Twin Peaks and many other guest roles. He also directed one episode of Growing Pains and two episodes of Harry and the Hendersons...

 and featured a rotating cast that included Carmen De Lavallade

Carmen De Lavallade

Carmen De Lavallade is a dancer, choreographer, professor and stage and film actress.-Early Years:Carmen De Lavallade was born in Los Angeles on March 6, 1931, to Afro-Creole parents from New Orleans, Louisiana. She was raised by her aunt who owned one of the first African American history...

, Sandy Duncan

Sandy Duncan

Sandra Kay "Sandy" Duncan is an American singer, dancer and actress of stage and television, recognized through a blonde, pixie cut hairstyle and perky demeanor...

, Joan Copeland

Joan Copeland

Joan Copeland is an American actress and the younger sister of celebrated playwright Arthur Miller. She began her career appearing in theatre in New York City during the mid 1940s. She moved into television and film during the 1950s while still maintaining an active stage career...

, Rita Gam

Rita Gam

Rita Gam is an American film and television actress and documentary film maker. She was nominated for a Golden Globe and won the Silver Bear for Best Actress.-Career:...

, Michael Frischetti, Peggy Pope

Peggy Pope

Peggy Pope is an American actress.She was born in Montclair, New Jersey. She has made her many acting appearances memorable—even in the smallest roles—beginning in 1966 with the television show The Trials of O'Brien, starring Peter Falk and Elaine Stritch.Pope is most recognizable as...

, Ben Hammer, Tammy Grimes

Tammy Grimes

-Early life:Grimes was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, the daughter of Eola Willard , a naturalist and spiritualist, and Nicholas Luther Grimes, an innkeeper, country-club manager, and farmer. She attended high school at the then-all girls school, Beaver Country Day School, in Chestnut Hill,...

, Margery Beddow

Margery Beddow

Margery Beddow was an American actress, dancer, director and choreographer.-Early years:In her early career, Beddow was a prima ballerina of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and a dancer with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet.-Career:Beddow appeared on Broadway in Redhead, Conquering Hero, We Take the...

, Robert Ierardi, Kitty Carlisle Hart

Kitty Carlisle Hart

Kitty Carlisle was an American singer, actress and spokeswoman for the arts. She is best remembered as a regular panelist on the television game show To Tell the Truth. She served 20 years on the New York State Council on the Arts. In 1991, she received the National Medal of Arts from President...

, Alvin Epstein, Rosemary Harris

Rosemary Harris

Rosemary Ann Harris is an English actress and a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame. Throughout her career she has been nominated for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award and has won a Golden Globe, an Emmy, a Tony Award, an Obie, and five Drama Desk Awards.-Early life:Harris was born in...

, and Dina Merrill

Dina Merrill

-Early life:Merrill was born Nedenia Marjorie Hutton in New York City, New York, the only child of Post Cereals heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post and her second husband, Wall Street stockbroker Edward Francis Hutton...

.