Time: 7:00pm
Venue: King's Head Theatre, Islington
Deadline: April 12, 2004
Set in New York, Three on a Couch is a witty comedy about an egomaniac writer, a neurotic shrink... and a rather cross wife.....An international best-selling novelist has everything: talent, fame, wealth, acclaim, a beautiful and intelligent wife. But for him it's not enough. He has an obsessive quest... and tells his secret Shrink about his plan... but does not tell his wife. Will the Shrink tell her what he knows? Will he get away with it? And what happens after the wife and the therapist share a mango together...?!
The play features Leigh Zimmerman, a noted West End actor. After completing her performance in Three on a Couch, Zimmerman will be returning to the West End musical stage in the autumn for the long-awaited transfer of Mel Brooks' multi Tony Award-winning The Producers. An American whose Broadway credits include A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Crazy for You and Follies, Zimmerman came to West End prominence in Chicago before starring last year as The Girl in the Yellow Dress in Contact. At the King's Head, Zimmerman will join Rolf Saxon (Chicago, The Graduate, The Seven Year Itch) and the well known TV and theatre actor Michael Praed in the production.
Born in Vienna, and raised in Austria and Bulgaria, Carl Djerassi has had a distinguished career as a chemist, patron of the arts, and writer. He is perhaps best known for synthesizing the first oral contraceptive-"the Pill," and is recognized as one of the world's foremost organic chemists.
At Stanford since 1959 as a professor of chemistry, Professor Djerassi's many scientific awards include being one of the few American scientists to have been awarded both the National Medal of Science (for his work on the Pill) and the National Medal of Technology (for promoting new approaches to insect control). A member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as well as many foreign academies, Djerassi has received 19 honorary doctorates together with numerous other honors, such as the first Wolf Prize in Chemistry, the first Award for the Industrial Application of Science from the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Chemical Society's highest award, the Priestley Medal.
After his extraordinarily successful dual career in academic and industrial chemistry, Dr. Djerassi began his "third intellectual career" in literature with the 1988 publishing of a first collection of short stories. His novels include Cantor's Dilemma; The Bourbaki Gambit; Marx, Deceased; Menachem's Seed, and NO as well as two autobiographies: Steroids Made it Possible and The Pill, Pygmy Chimps, and Degas' Horse.
In 1997, he has started writing "science-in-theatre" plays. The first, An Immaculate Misconception, premiered at the 1998 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and was subsequently staged in London, San Francisco, New York, Vienna, Cologne, Munich, Sundsvall, Stockholm, Sofia, Geneva, Tokyo and Seoul. The play has been translated into 9 languages and also published in book form in English, German, Spanish and Swedish. Oxygen (co-authored with Roald Hoffmann) was his second production and premiered in April 2001 at the San Diego Repertory Theatre; the show then traveled to Würzburg, London and subsequently in 2003 to Seoul, Tokyo, New Zealand, as well as Toronto; Ottawa; Madison, WI; Columbus, OH; and Bologna. It has already been translated into 10 languages. His third "science-in-theatre" play, Calculus and his first "non-scientific" play, Ego, opened in 2003 in San Francisco and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, respectively. A modified version of Ego opened in London in March 2004 under the title Three On a Couch. Under the auspices of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, he founded an artists' colony near Woodside, California, which provides residences and studio space for approximately seventy artists per year in the visual arts, literature, choreography and music. Over 1300 artists have passed through that program since its inception.
Professor Djerassi also happens to be married to the distinguished biographer and Stanford Professor of English Diane W. Middlebrook, and the two live in San Francisco and London.
Price: £12.50 for SCGB members; £17.50 for non-members. The three-course dinner is £14.00 per person.
RSVP by April 12 via email to confirm your attendance to: events@stanfordalumni.org.uk For further information contact: skip.schwartz@heitman.com. ?
Please send checks by April 14 to hold your reservation to:
SCGB, 11 Charleville Circus, London SE26 6NR
Space is limited, so please respond by April 12 for what should be an extremely enjoyable Stanford event!
Theatre details are below:
King's Head Theatre
115 Upper Street
Islington
London N1 1QN
020 7226 1916
Event submitted by Anna Linerum, Event Committee.