Selected Shorts on Tour: The Momentary, Bentonville, Arkansas

The Artists

Teagle F. Bougere recently portrayed James Baldwin in the American Vicarious virtual production of Debate: Baldwin vs. Buckley, and co-starred with Catherine Zeta-Jones in the webseries Queen America. Bougere's Broadway credits include The Crucible, A Raisin in the Sun, and The Tempest. He was featured in The Public Theater’s productions of Socrates and the much acclaimed production of Coriolanus in Central Park. His most recent New York stage appearance was the world premiere of The New Englanders at Manhattan Theater Club. Additional theater credits include Is God Is at SoHo Rep, Beast in the Jungle, the title role in the stage adaptation of Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man at The Court Theater in Chicago, The Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C., and The Huntington in Boston, Julius Caesar and Cymbeline for The Public Theater in Central Park, A Soldier’s Play at Second Stage, A Fair Country at Lincoln Center, Last Dance for Sybil (with Ruby Dee) at the New Federal Theatre, An Iliad (one man show) at the Pittsburgh Public Theater, and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and Blue Door at Berkeley Rep. His film and television credits include Hill ‘n’ Gully, The Path, The Mist, Good Friday, Conviction, Cosby, The Job, Third Watch, Murder in Black and White, A Night at the Museum, The Imposters, The Pelican Brief, Two Weeks Notice, and What the Deaf Man Heard, Bull, as well as seven episodes for the Law & Order franchise.

Tate Donovan has appeared in more than 45 films, including the recently released Respect and Netflix's Worth. Others include Rocketman, The Upside, Manchester by the Sea, Argo, Good Night and Good Luck, Memphis Belle, Ethan Frome, Love Potion #9, Clean and Sober, and the title voice in Disney’s animated feature Hercules. His television credits include The Man in the High Castle, 24, Damages, The OC, and Friends. Donovan has appeared on Broadway in the Tony Award-winning productions of Good People, Amy’s View, and Picnic, and he has performed Off-Broadway in Kenneth Lonergan's Lobby Hero and The Medieval Play. He has also directed several episodes of Madam Secretary, Damages, Glee, Weeds, Gossip Girl, Nip/Tuck, The OC, and Bloodline, as well as the ESPN documentary Arthur and Johnnie about the tennis star Arthur Ashe, for which he won an Emmy Award.

Percival Everett is the author of 20 books, including Wounded, which won the 2006 PEN USA Literary Award, Erasure winner of the Academy Award for Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award; Big Picture, winner of the PEN/Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature; Zulus, winner of the New American Writing Award, and the story collection Damned if I Do. His latest books are the novel I Am Not Sidney Poitier, winner of the 2010 Believer Book Award, and the collection of poetry Swimming Swimmers Swimming. He is a Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California.

Richard Grant is an award-winning author, journalist, and television host. He currently writes for Smithsonian magazine, The New York Times, Al Jazeera America, the Telegraph (UK), and several other publications. He grew up in London, England, and now lives in Jackson, Mississippi. His latest book is Dispatches from Pluto, a New York Times bestseller and Winner of the Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize. His previous books are Crazy River, God’s Middle Finger, and American Nomads.

Emily Skeggs is an actor, writer, and vocalist. A born and bred New Yorker, she was nominated for both a Tony and Grammy award for her work in the award-winning production of Fun Home on Broadway, directed by Sam Gold. Her off-Broadway and regional theater credits include Take Me Along and Transport at the Irish Repertory Theatre, David Cromer’s Our Town with the Huntington Theatre Company, and Naomi Wallace’s And IandSilence at the Signature Theatre Company. Film and television credits include WGN’s Salem, Dustin Lance Black’s ABC miniseries When We Rise, Lifetime’s Love You to Death starring opposite Marcia Gay Harden, the American High feature The Ultimate Playlist of Noise on Hulu, and the anticipated feature Dinner in America, from director Adam Rehmeier, which debuted at Sundance 2020. You can currently find her in Los Angeles, where she maintains a small urban food farm. She recently taught her cat to sit.

Laura van den Berg is the author of the story collections What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us and The Isle of Youth, and the novels Find Me and The Third Hotel, which was a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award and an Indie Next pick, and was named a best book of 2018 by more than a dozen publications. She is the recipient of a Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Bard Fiction Prize, a PEN/O. Henry Award, and a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, and is a two-time finalist for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award.

Actors subject to change.

Selected Shorts is produced by Symphony Space in New York City and broadcast on more than 150 stations around the country. The Selected Shorts podcast consistently ranks as one of the most popular podcasts on iTunes, with over 100,000 downloads every week. The series began in 1985 and enjoys sold-out performances to this day. Selected Shorts was conceived with a simple premise: take great stories by well-known and emerging writers and have them performed by terrific actors of stage and screen. Evenings are often co-hosted by writers or involve a special collaboration with literary publications, podcasts, museums, and more. Each Selected Shorts is a unique night of literature in performance.