Description
Selected Shorts returns to the Academy of Music for an evening of comic short fiction. Host Maulik Pancholy (30 Rock) is joined by Juliana Canfield (Succession) and Liev Schreiber (Ray Donovan) to perform lighthearted and reflective tales of everyday human folly by authors Peter Orner, Kiley Reid, Saki, and Simon Rich.
Our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time. Sometimes funny. Always moving. Selected Shorts connects you to the world with a rich diversity of voices from literature, film, theater, and comedy.
To Learn About the Artists
Juliana Canfield is an actress recognized for her work in Succession, The Assistant, Amazing Stories, and Sofia Coppola's On the Rocks. Her New York stage credits include the world premiere of Adrienne Kennedy’s He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box, Marcus Gardley’s The House That Will Not Stand, Maria Irene Fornes’ Fefu and Her Friends, and Amelia Roper's Zurich. She will next be seen in the upcoming F/X series, Y: The Last Man opposite Diane Lane.
Maulik Pancholy is an actor, author, and activist. He is best known for his television roles on 30 Rock, Weeds, Whitney, The Good Fight, and for lending his voice to the long-running animated series Phineas & Ferb and Sanjay & Craig. On stage, he starred on Broadway in Terrence McNally’s It's Only a Play, in The New Group’s production of Good for Otto, and most recently returned to Broadway in Bess Wohl’s Grand Horizons at the Helen Hayes Theatre. Pancholy’s debut novel, The Best at It, was named a 2020 Stonewall Honor Book, a Junior Library Guild Selection, and received starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and the American Library Association’s Booklist. Pancholy is the co-founder of the anti-bullying organization ActToChange.org.
Peter Orner is the author of several works of fiction, including The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, Love and Shame and Love, Esther Stories, Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge, and most recently, Maggie Brown & Others as well as the memoir Am I Alone Here?, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is a two-time Pushcart Prize winner and a recipient of the Guggenheim fellowship.
Kiley Reid is a recent graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was the recipient of the Truman Capote Fellowship. Her work has been featured in Ploughshares, New South, Playboy, and The Tishman Review, among other publications. Reid’s first novel, Such a Fun Age, was published in 2019.
Simon Rich is an American humorist, novelist, and television writer, known for being the youngest writer ever hired on Saturday Night Live and writing the Thurber Prize-nominated humor collection Ant Farm: And Other Desperate Situations. His most recent work, Hits and Misses, was published in 2018. He is the creator and showrunner of the FXX series Man Seeking Woman, which is based on his collection of short stories The Last Girlfriend on Earth, and the TBS series Miracle Workers, based on his novel What in God’s Name. His four-part novella Sell Out was adapted into the film An American Pickle starring Seth Rogen. Rich is a frequent contributor to the “Shouts & Murmurs” section of The New Yorker.
Saki (pseudonym of Hector Hugh Munro, 1870 - 1916) was an English writer and journalist born in Burma. He wrote The Rise of the Russian Empire and the novel The Unbearable Bassington, but is best known for his short stories. His collections include Reginald, The Chronicles of Clovis, Beasts and Super-Beasts and The Square Egg and Other Sketches. He died in combat in World War I.
Liev Schreiber is a Selected Shorts alum, best known for Showtimes’ Ray Donovan,
for which he earned five Golden Globe nominations and three Emmy nominations. His
film credits include the Scream trilogy, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, The Manchurian
Candidate, Spotlight, Isle of Dogs, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. He has
appeared on Broadway in Glengarry Glen Ross, for which he won a Tony Award, A
View from the Bridge, for which he won a Drama Desk Award, Talk Radio, and Les
Liaisons Dangereuses. He received an Obie for his performance In the Public Theater’s
production of Cymbeline, as well as playing the title roles in their productions of Hamlet,
Henry V, and Macbeth. Schreiber is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama. Upcoming
projects include The French Dispatch and Across the River and Into the Trees.
Selected Shorts is supported by the Dungannon Foundation, sponsor of The Rea Award for the Short Story. Support is also provided by the Howard Gilman Foundation, the NYC COVID-19 Response and Impact Fund in The New York Community Trust, The Shubert Foundation, the Charina Endowment Fund, The Scherman Foundation, the Henry Nias Foundation, the Axe-Houghton Foundation, the Lemberg Foundation, and The Grodzins Fund. Selected Shorts is also made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts, and with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. Symphony Space thanks our generous supporters, including our Board of Directors, Producers Circle, and members, who make our programs possible with their annual support.
Expected Run Time is 75 minutes
