Linda Lavin

A Live Interview On Stage

Already Performed this Season

Linda Lavin, Broadway Tony Award winner, Emmy-nominated TV star and singer comes to the Edgerton Center for an evening of conversation and Q/A. After winning a Tony for Neil Simon's Broadway Bound, Linda was most recently nominated for The Lyons as well as for Collected Stories, The Tale of the Allergist's Wife and The Diary Of Anne Frank. She has also performed starring roles on Broadway in Gypsy, The Sisters Rosensweig, Hollywood Arms and the Kennedy Center 2011 production of Follies.

Her television career includes her nine-year run as the title character in Alice (winning two Golden Globe awards) and starring roles on Barney Miller, The O.C. and Conrad Bloom. Her TV guest appearances include Rhoda, Law and Order and The Sopranos.

In Fall 2013, Ms. Lavin will costar with Sean Hayes and Megan Hilty in Sean Saves the World, a new NBC comedy series.

She performs regularly with her trio in the hit nightclub concert Possibilties and recently released a CD of the same name.

General Public: $25
Senior Citizens: $15
Faculty/Staff/Alumni: $15
Students: $10

Mitzi Gaynor

Interview Live on Stage

Already Performed this Season

Who, with 17 films to her credit, became one of the top singing and dancing motion picture stars of all time? Who conquered television with nine showstopping spectaculars garnering 17 Emmy® nominations and blockbuster ratings? Whose dazzling triple-threat talents made her arguably the top female nightclub and concert attraction of the era? The answer to all these questions is, simply, Miss Mitzi Gaynor.

She made her motion picture debut co-starring with her childhood idols Betty Grable and Dan Dailey in My Blue Heaven. The studio, quick to capitalize on the vivacious talent that would later propel Mitzi to the top ranks of show business, cast her in a succession of comedies and musicals including Golden Girl, Bloodhounds of Broadway, We're Not Married and The I Don't Care Girl. Mitzi delivered a star-making performance alongside Ethel Merman, Dan Dailey, Donald O'Connor and newcomer Marilyn Monroe in There's No Business Like Show Business. Following that film's success, she was signed to a lucrative Paramount contract, which would yield three film hits: The Birds and the Bees with George Gobel and David Niven, Anything Goes with Bing Crosby and Donald O'Connor and a dramatic turn in The Joker Is Wild.

50th Celebration Event

Surviving Mommie Dearest

A Conversation with Christina Crawford

Already performed this season

Surviving Mommie Dearest is a bio-pic documentary and audience talk-back with Joan Crawford's daughter, Christina Crawford. The 45-minute documentary is based on a one-woman multimedia play written by and starring best-selling author Christina Crawford. It covers 100 years of entertainment and show business history as well as issues of social justice. The documentary is based on three of Crawford's best-selling books, Mommie Dearest, Survivor and No Safe Place. The documentary features personal home movies and historical photos of both Joan and Christina Crawford. Throughout her long career, Ms. Crawford has turned the issue of family violence into public awareness. She also offers hope and the healing process through her personal experiences.