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Dec. 5, 2011/For Immediate Release MEDIA: You are invited to attend an all-School of
Drama Q&A with Estelle Parsons from 5-6:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 9, in the
Thrust Theatre of Performance Place. A limited number of interviews are
available. Please contact me at the number or email above for details.
-- Marla
ESTELLE PARSONS TO VISIT UNCSA
Academy Award-Winning Actress Will Meet With Students in Schools of
Drama and Filmmaking
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WINSTON-SALEM – Academy Award-winning
actress Estelle Parsons will be on the
campus of the University of North
Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) on
Dec. 8 and 9 to meet with students in
the Schools of Drama and Filmmaking.
Parsons won an Academy Award as Best
Supporting Actress for her work as
Blanche Barrow in Arthur Penn’s BONNIE
AND CLYDE (1967), with Warren Beatty and
Faye Dunaway, and was nominated the next
year for her work as Calla Mackie in
Paul Newman’s RACHEL, RACHEL, with
Joanne Woodward. Most recently, she
appeared in the film WILD SALOME with Al
Pacino, Kevin Anderson and Jessica
Chastain, released earlier this year.
Also a frequent Tony Award nominee with
extensive Broadway credits, Parsons is
perhaps most publicly recognized for
playing Roseanne Barr’s mother, Beverly,
on the 1988-1997 ABC-TV sitcom
Roseanne.
On Thursday, Dec. 8, Parsons will hold a
symposium for student screenwriters,
directors and editors in the School of
Filmmaking, and will visit the editing
suites, where she will view student
films in production and will talk to the
directors and editors. That evening, the
Film school will screen one of her films
for students. On Friday, Dec. 9, she
will spend the day with acting and
directing students in the School of
Drama.
Parson’s visit to UNCSA has been a
three-year endeavor for Ron Roose, who
teaches editing and sound in the School
of Filmmaking, and is a long-time family
friend of the actress. Roose said that
Parsons agreed to the visit three years
ago, but her active work schedule
prevented it until now. Parsons is also a long-time friend and associate of Gerald Freedman, dean of UNCSA’s School of Drama. She recently offered a personal tribute to Freedman during “An Evening of Song and Tribute,” a fund-raising event in New York for Sonnet Repertory Theatre that celebrated Freedman’s career. |
Photo courtesy broadwayworld.com |
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Freedman said his students will never forget meeting an
actor with her experience. “She is one of the most
honest, down-to-earth, straight-forward actors I have
ever worked with,” said Freedman, who directed Parsons,
Stacy Keach, Olympia Dukakis and Judy Collins in his
celebrated production of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt at
Shakespeare in the Park (New York City) in 1969.
Freedman and Parsons met as teen-agers working in summer
stock. “She is always real, in the moment, and ready to
take chances.”
Roose said Film students also will benefit enormously
from her visit. “For students to hear her talk about her
experiences on stage and screen, how she reads scripts
and prepares for roles, how she works with and interacts
with actors and directors, it’s all enormously
meaningful,” he said.
Estelle Parsons
has acted extensively on Broadway, in film, and on
television. Recent stage appearances include Lincoln
Center’s revival of Mornings at Seven, the Tony
Award-winning August: Osage County, and the world
premiere of Good People.
Parsons has received four Tony Award nominations, for
her work: in The Seven Descents of Myrtle (1968),
And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little (1971), Miss
Margarida’s Way (1978) and Mornings at Seven
(2002). She also has directed several Broadway
productions, including Romeo and Juliet,
Macbeth, and As You Like It. For five years
Parsons was artistic director of The Actors Studio. In
2004, she was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of
Fame.
In addition to BONNIE AND CLYDE and RACHEL, RACHEL, her
film credits include WATERMELON MAN (1970), I NEVER SANG
FOR MY FATHER (1971), TWO PEOPLE (1973), A MEMORY OF TWO
MONDAYS (1970), FOR PETE’S SAKE (1975), DICK TRACY
(1990), and BOYS ON THE SIDE (1995).
On television, she appeared on The Patty Duke Show,
All in the Family, Archie Bunker’s Place,
Frasier, Law & Order: Special Victim’s Unit,
the TV movie THE UFO INCIDENT: THE STORY OF BETTY AND
BARNEY HILL (opposite James Earl Jones), and the PBS
production of June Moon.
The University of North Carolina School of the Arts
is the first state-supported, residential school of its
kind in the nation. Established as the North Carolina
School of the Arts by the N.C. General Assembly in 1963,
UNCSA opened in Winston-Salem (“The City of Arts and
Innovation”) in 1965 and became part of the University
of North Carolina system in 1972. More than 1,100
students from high school through graduate school train
for careers in the arts in five professional schools:
Dance, Design and Production (including a Visual Arts
Program), Drama, Filmmaking, and Music. UNCSA is the
state’s only public arts conservatory, dedicated
entirely to the professional training of talented
students in the performing, visual and moving image
arts. For more information, visit
www.uncsa.edu. ### |
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