FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 20, 2007
Media Contact: Priscilla L. Hunter, 312.344.7805, 312.286.6624 (cell) or phunter@colum.edu
Chicago, IL-- Renowned actress and former National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) chairman Jane Alexander comes to Columbia College Chicago for the final conversation of the college's 2006-07 Conversations in the Artsseries on Thursday, April 26 at 7:30 p.m. at Columbia College's Getz Theater, 72 E. 11th Street.
Tickets are $50 each. To purchase tickets call Columbia Ticket Center, 312.344.6600. For further information on Conversations in the Arts call, 312.344.7287.
Passionate and forthright about issues of importance to the future of American Arts and Culture, Alexander will discuss arts policy, reflecting on her time at the NEA, as well as the importance of arts education and why the government should support the arts.
Nick Rabkin, executive director of the Chicago Center for Arts Policy at Columbia College Chicago will host Alexander's conversation.
A Tony and Emmy Award-winner and four-time Oscar nominee, Jane Alexander has starred in dozens of movies, including "The Great White Hope," "All the President's Men," "Kramer vs. Kramer" and "Eleanor and Franklin." Her stage credits include "The Great White Hope," "Shadowlands" and "The Sisters Rosenweig."
Alexander was Chairman of an embattled NEA from 1993-1997, her tenure coinciding with the ascent of the Gingrich Congress and its attempt to sabotage arts funding. She describes these years in her book, "Command Performance: An Actress in the Theatre of Politics" by offering a sharp and sometimes hilarious take on those sometimes surreal days and a gimlet-eyed portrait of Washington at work, play and cocktail reception.
Alexander relates her stormy years at the NEA with charm, honesty and passion: listening to Gingrich suggest to Melanie Griffith that there is a part for her in the movie version of his novel; trying without much success to talk to the president who hired her; traveling the inspired landscape of the America art scene; and documenting her own uncomfortable adjustment to political reality and brutality. She convinces us that we need art and that the government should be in the business of supporting it.
Nick Rabkin took over as the executive director for the Chicago Center for Arts Policy (the "Center") in November 2001. He has written about arts policy and education for the "Chicago Tribune," "Washington Post," "Education Week," and "Educational Leadership." He served as the senior program officer for arts and culture at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in Chicago and as deputy commissioner of cultural affairs for Chicago under the Harold Washington and Richard M. Daley administrations.
The Center serves to advance policy ideas that support and sustain the arts. It explores the ways the arts contribute to building a robust democracy, healthy communities and individual lives. The Center accomplishes this through research, analysis and public programming.
For the last year, the Center has provided education and evaluation services for Chicago's Local Initiatives Development Corporation's Arts Build Community program, which did cultural planning in three Chicago neighborhoods: South Chicago, Humboldt Park and Albany Park.
Columbia College Chicago, an urban institution committed to access, opportunity, and excellence in higher education, provides innovative practice and education in the visual, performing, media and communication arts to 11,000 students in more than 90 undergraduate and graduate programs. Founded in 1890 as a communications school for women, Columbia was revisioned in 1963 as a liberal arts college with a "hands-on, minds-on" approach to arts and media education and a progressive social agenda. Under the modern leadership of President Warrick L. Carter, Ph.D., Columbia is aggressively pursuing its mission to bring a richness of vision and a multiplicity of voices to the creation of culture through the diversity of our students and graduates. For further information visit www.colum.edu.