New Play About Princeton Native Sylvia Beach

By Lisa Reznik
 Lisa Reznik – 68 Linden Place -Summit, NJ 07901
973.885.1983 – [email protected]
For immediate release
February 23, 2009
Drama by Summit, NJ Playwright Debuts in New York City in March
 “Left Bank Bookseller,” a drama by Summit resident Lisa Reznik Meyers, will be performed at the Barrow Group Theater, 312 W. 36 Street, on March 5, 8 and 13.
This new work takes the audience to Paris in the 1920s when the City of Light was the cultural capital of the world.  Inspired by the literary life of the left bank, Princeton Native Sylvia Beach opens a bookstore of English and American literature called Shakespeare and Company which quickly became a favorite rendezvous of the American writers and artists known as the “Lost Generation.”  The play also features the love story between Sylvia and bookseller Adrienne Monnier, who advised her to publish the novel that was to make the shop famous.   
Shakespeare and Company was not just a bookstore. It functioned as a lending library and a center of activity for English-speaking writers and artists in Paris. Writers who frequented the shop included Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Samuel Beckett, Gertrude Stein, Thornton Wilder, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound and Andre Gide.   Books that were banned in England and the U.S., like Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Tropic of Cancer, were available to buy or borrow.
Lending their talents to this premiere are two actors of depth and substance. Heather Girardi steps into the role of Sylvia Beach, and Krista Amigone portrays Adrienne Monnier.  Girardi’s roles have included Flounce in The Gentleman Dancing-Master, Catherine in Proof, Karen in The Children’s Hour and Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.   Amigone, an actress and dancer originally from Buffalo, NY, has played Susan in Questa, Laura in Gated and as a member of the jazz-improv fusion group FACE.
The play is directed by Michael Grayman, whose recent directing credits include Chinadoll Overdrive for the NYC Summer Play Festival and I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change at The Barnstormers Theatre in New Hampshire. He directed for the McCarter Theatre’s YouthInk Festival in 2007 and 2008.   
Playwright Lisa Reznik is a journalist, screenwriter and educator.    Left Bank Bookseller is an adaptation of her full length screenplay, Shakespeare and Company, which has received awards at U.S. film festivals. She studied at the Sorbonne and earned a Master’s degree in journalism from NYU.  The idea for a film came while reading Sylvia Beach and The Lost Generation by Noel Fitch Riley. Reznik read the book to learn more about the writers and artists who contributed to the most innovative period since The Renaissance.  Her drama portrays the meeting of two influential women who encouraged writers to further freedom of expression.
Performances are Thursday, March 5 at 8:30 pm; Sunday, March 8 at 2:00 pm; and Friday, March 13 at 6:00 pm. 
The play is being performed in conjunction with the Network One-Act Festival, a competition for up-and-coming writers, actors and directors.   Tickets are $15 and may be purchased by phone at 212.563.3770 or online at www.smartix.com.