On tonight’s Women’s History Month program we’ll be joined by Garrick Beck, Michael Elias and Tom Walker to celebrate the memory of the actress, director, writer, activist, feminist, anarchist, pacifist, Judith Malina, most famously co-founder of The Living Theatre with her husband Julian Beck.  From its beginnings in 1947, in the Beck’s Upper West Side living room, The Living Theatre is the most enduring experimental and politically engaged theater in America. We’ll also celebrate the late playwright Kenneth H. Brown, author of The Brig, perhaps The Living Theatre’s most morally unnerving and impactful production, one based upon Brown’s own experience of the tedium, brutality and violence of a Marine Corps prison.

Garrick Beck, the son of Julian Beck and Judith Malina, was a child actor in their early plays at the Cherry Lane, the 100th Street Loft, and their 14th Street Theater where The Brig opened in 1963. He traveled with the company summers away from school during their 20-year European tour.  He created numerous countercultural festival-style events such as the Oregon Country Faire, the Vortex Festival, the Amsterdam Cannabis Cup and the Rainbow Gatherings. He helped manage the Living’s 3rd Street Theater in the 1990’s, and in the 2000’s helped with productions at their final New York venue on Clinton Street. In 2008, he became The iving Theatre’s Board Chairperson and has helped with the company’s productions, workshops and publications ever since. He lives in Santa Fe.

Tom Walker has worked with The Living Theater for over 50 years, appearing in innumerable of its productions in grand state theaters and on street corners. He is the company’s archivist and has written introductions to several publications of the work of Julian Beck and Judith Malina. He has also collaborated with the puppet artist Theodora Skipitares at La Mama and, more recently has been collaborating as a poet with Jeannine Otis, the music director of St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery. He is working on his own memoir.

Michael Elias is an award-winning writer, actor, and director with credits in film, television, theater and fiction. His produced screenplays include The Frisco Kid (with Frank Shaw), The Jerk (with Steve Martin), Envoyez les Violons, and Young Doctors in Love. His semi-autographical play The Catskill Sonata about blacklisted artists, was directed in Los Angeles by Paul Mazursky. He wrote and directed Showtime’s Lush Life with Forrest Whitaker and Jeff Goldblum, a TV movie that has become a jazz film classic. His two novels include the psychological thriller You Can Go Home Now and The Last Conquistador, about the Inca. Before amassing any of these accomplishments, Michael Elias was an actor in The Living Theater’s original New York production and European tour of The Brig.

Hosted by Janet Coleman and David Dozer