Stars of stage and page

Coinciding with the New York State Summer Writers Institute, which brings renowned authors to Skidmore to teach and give readings each summer, Selected Shorts on Tour is bringing to campus three Hollywood actors to read from the writers’ short stories. The event begins at 7 p.m. on Saturday, July 22, in Skidmore’s Zankel Music Center; tickets, available here, are $25, $20, and $15. The readings will be recorded for possible use as a Selected Shorts podcast or a broadcast on its weekly National Public Radio show. 

The event will feature James Naughton (parent of a 1993 Skidmore grad), who has had major roles from Chicago to The Devil Wears Prada to Planet of the Apes, performing Evan S. Connell’s story “Election Eve”; Richard Masur, of Orange is the New Black, One Day at a Time, and The Good Wife, reading Russel Banks’s “The Caul”; and Mia Dillon, whose credits include The Money Pit, All Good Things, and Gods and Generals, presenting Ann Beattie’s “Yancey.” The evening promises comedy, drama, and plot twists.

Selected Shorts, regularly held at Symphony Space in New York City, brings fiction to life for its audiences and more than 300,000 radio listeners each week; its podcast is consistently among the most popular on iTunes. Selected Shorts on Tour at Skidmore is part of the Stewart’s Signature Series, a lineup of premier performances at Skidmore made possible by Stewart’s Shops and the Dake family.