Harrison Library Presents 'Collected Stories'

The Downtown will present “Collected Stories” by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Donald Margulies on Sunday, April 3.

The play, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1996, focuses on two writers — one just starting out, the other grizzled, somewhat crotchety, authoritative and demanding veteran — and the relationship that blossoms between them as the older mentors her student, shepherding her toward the first glimmers of success and acclaim.

The performance is an M&M Production featuring Christine Lorenzo and Sarah Smegal, and directed by Larry Schneider. Margulies, the author, attended SUNY Purchase and won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for drama for another of his plays “Dinner with Friends.”

“Collected Stories” features six scenes, each set in different years of the characters' lives. The show finds meaning in the everyday moments that make up two lives, the small disappointments and smaller triumphs, the white lies and seemingly minor betrayals that mark a relationship. We see the writers’ relationship and interdependence evolve from teacher and devoted fan, to mentor and protégé, onto surrogate mother and daughter, and beyond.

The New York Times described the play as an “engaging tale of aesthetics and ethics with intelligence and sharp, literate humor.” New York Magazine said: “As always, Margulies is literate, intellectually stimulating and able to create characters of both dramatic and human interest. And he sustains this interest through six scenes covering six years that only briefly leave Ruth's cozily messy, book-infested Greenwich Village apartment. Here two worlds clash in age-old, ecumenical dueling, led up to by great mutual emotional investment and all the more bitter for it."

Sunday's performance will begin at 2 p.m., admission is free.

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