2011/12 season > Selected Shorts

Selected Shorts
Live in Performance:

“Delicious Fictions”

special presentation | roda theatre
only two performances!

Sunday, April 1, 2012 / 2 & 7pm

The hit public radio series tours to Berkeley Rep! Jill Eikenberry and Michael Tucker (longtime leads of the hit TV series L.A. Law) join host Isaiah Sheffer to perform a trio of luscious, hilarious and provocative tales of food and love by wildly inventive Israeli writer and filmmaker Etgar Keret, Irish-American author of delicious family stories Alice McDermott, and classic master of the tale with a twist, Roald Dahl. Audiences can enjoy Selected Shorts live in performance on April 1 at 2pm and 7pm in the Roda Theatre. This event is produced by Berkeley Rep in association with Jonathan Reinis Productions.

“One of the finest evenings at the theatre!”—David Sedaris

“The angel of the short story.”—Grace Paley

who’s who

Jill Eikenberry has a long list of theatre, film and television credits. She is best known for portraying Ann Kelsey on NBC’s LA Law, which earned her four Emmy nominations, two Golden Globe nominations and a Golden Globe Award. Since making her feature film debut in 1976, she’s been seen in everything from Arthur and The Manhattan Project to Something Borrowed and Young Adult. Her Broadway credits began with Moonchildren and went on to include Onward Victoria, Summer Brave, Watch on the Rhine and All Over Town, directed by Dustin Hoffman. Eikenberry was honored with an Obie Award for Lemon Sky and Life Under Water, and her recent off-Broadway appearances include A Picasso, Enter Laughing and The Kid. Seen in Wendy Wasserstein’s Uncommon Women and Others, she reprised that role opposite Meryl Streep in the PBS film. Her regional credits include the Arena Stage, Long Wharf Theater, Marin Theatre Company and Yale Repertory Theatre, and local audiences will recall Eikenberry from The Vagina Monologues at Circle in the Square and the Napa Valley Opera House.

A veteran stage, film and television actor, Michael Tucker is best known for his role as Stuart Markowitz on LA Law. His eight-year stint on the popular NBC drama brought him three Emmy nominations and two Golden Globe nominations. His Broadway credits include The Goodbye People, Moonchildren and Trelawny of the Wells with John Lithgow, Mandy Patinkin and Meryl Streep. He performed principal roles in The Comedy of Errors, The Merry Wives of Windsor and Measure for Measure for Joe Papp in Central Park. His other New York credits include Lincoln Center, Manhattan Theatre Club, Playwrights Horizons, the Roundabout Theatre and Second Stage Theatre. Regionally, he’s been seen at Arena Stage, Long Wharf Theatre and Milwaukee Repertory Theater, and he helped reopen the Geary Theatre in San Francisco by performing in The Tempest. Tucker’s film credits include Diner, The Eyes of Laura Mars, Network, A Night Full of Rain, Radio Days, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Tin Men and An Unmarried Woman. He is the author of three books: Family Meals: Coming Together to Care for an Aging Parent, I Never Forget a Meal: An Indulgent Reminiscence and Living in a Foreign Language: A Memoir of Food, Wine, and Love in Italy.

Isaiah Sheffer is co-founder of Symphony Space and serves as its artistic director, now preparing for the theatre’s 30th anniversary season. At Symphony Space, he hosts and directs the long-running hit series Selected Shorts—live, on tour and in its PRI radio incarnation across the country. He also stages the annual James Joyce celebration “Bloomsday on Broadway,” as he has for the past 26 years. With Martin Sage, Sheffer creates the theatre’s hit political cabaret, The Thalia Follies. Sheffer’s writing for the stage and screen includes the book and lyrics to two successful musicals, The Rise of David Levinsky and Yiddle with a Fiddle, as well as an original play about Isaac Bashevis Singer, Demons and Dreamers, and the libretto for a baroque ballet on the subject of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, A More Perfect Union. In 2006, he launched Symphony Space’s Summer Stock on Broadway with a Rodgers and Hart reconstructed musical, Manhattan Madcaps of 1924 by Jerzy Turnpike. His television writing includes scripts for the PBS series Millennium: The Music of Ten Centuries, and he wrote the screenplay for A Pair of Jokers, which starred Jerry Stiller.

Tuckerberry photo