Rehearsals for our virtual adaptation of Alexandra Petri's (Washington Post) 'Inherit the Windbag' have just begun! In this pitched battle of bloviating wits, Petri revisits the televised Conventions of 1968 and the blistering nightly free-for-all between conservative pundit William F. Buckley and liberal author Gore Vidal. What ensues is a battle for history itself, in a no-holds-barred brawl about a time when American politics was spinning. Sound familiar? Join us for an in-depth look at the artistic re-imagining and modern resonance of this seminal moment in American history with Alexandra Petri and director Lee Mikeska Gardner. We will also be joined by special guest Nicholas D. Wrathall, Producer and Director of the award winning documentary "Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia" which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Nicholas D. Wrathall grew up in Sydney, Australia, but has made his mark as a writer, director and producer of films in America, where his award-winning documentary Gore Vidal – the United States of Amnesia, has won much acclaim.
After studying film in Australia he moved to New York when he was 22, and worked as an Assistant Director and Producer of commercials and music videos (working with Madonna during the late 90s on her clip. ‘Frozen‘, for which he won the MTV award for Best Music Video in 1998).
He first directed for TV with the documentary Abandoned: The Betrayal of America’s Immigrants, which screened on PBS in America and won the Alfred I. duPont Columbia Award for Broadcast Journalism in 2000. Short documentaries followed: Endless Caravan, Haitian Eksperyans and The Modern Gulag, which was picked-up by the New York Times as the basis for a feature on North Korean gulags operating in Far East Russia.
Gore Vidal – the United States of Amnesia is his first feature length documentary, for which he followed and interviewed infamous American intellectual and writer Gore Vidal in the last years of his life. Wrathall went on to travel with Gore to Italy, Cuba and many U.S. Cities, gaining further access to Gore’s insight on the current state of affairs in America. The film has proven a success with critics and audiences alike, winning multiple awards and cementing Vidal’s legacy in film.
Wrathall claims “to use filmmaking as a tool to inspire people to question media representation and reignite the art of critical thinking.”
Alexandra Petri is a playwright, columnist, and author. Her satire appears regularly in the Washington Post, and has also appeared in McSweeneys and the New Yorker's Daily Shouts and Murmurs, as well as on the radio, and on TV. Her plays include the radio drama Equinox (Flying V Productions), ""to tell my story: a hamlet fanfic"" (The Welders, 2017) — Helen-Hayes nominated; Tragedy Averted (Capital Fringe), hook-ups (Panndora's Box Productions). She was a member of the second generation of the Welders playwrights collective, and is currently a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Advanced Workshop. She apologizes profusely to anyone and everyone on whom she has inflicted Gore Vidal fun facts over the last two years. Up next: NOTHING IS WRONG AND HERE IS WHY, a collection of essays.
Lee Mikeska Gardner is the Artistic Director of The Nora Theatre Company in Cambridge, MA where she directed Cloud 9 (May/June 2019,) Les Liaisons Dangereuse, the world premiere of The Midvale High School Fiftieth Reunion (with Gordon Clapp), Journey to the West, Her Aching Heart, Grounded, Saving Kitty (with Jennifer Coolidge) and Arcadia. Lee spent her formative years in the Washington, D.C. area as an Artistic Associate for ten years at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, directing a show a season, earning Helen Hayes nominations for direction for After Ashley, Life During Wartime, and Goodnight, Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet. As an Associate Artist with 1st Stage, Lee directed Blithe Spirit, The How and The Why, Humble Boy and Fuddy Meers. Lee served as the Managing Director for Washington Shakespeare Company for five years directing shows including the world premieres of Caesar and Dada and Learning Curves, both by Allyson Currin, as well as A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Other favorite directing projects include Oklahoma! for Wheatland Theatre Company, Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie at The Kennedy Center; Angels in America (Millennium Approaches and Peristroika) at Signature Theatre; T.S. Eliot’s The Cocktail Party for the Washington Stage Guild (Theatre Lobby Award); Golden Boy and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with the Keegan Theatre, The Butterfingers Angel…, Thom Pain (Based on Nothing), Stones In His Pockets and Three Tall Women at Rep Stage, where Lee also served as Managing Director for two years. Lee spent seven years as Associate Artistic Director with the Shenandoah Playwrights’ Retreat working on plays in development. Also an actress, Lee has performed at the Nora as Olympe de Gouges in Lauren Gunderson's The Revolutionists, Brodie in Precious Little, Tess in Marjorie Prime, Emilie in Emilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight (Elliot Norton award for Outstanding Actress, Small Theatre) and Carla in the IRNE nominated Chosen Child at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. In the greater D.C. area, Lee performed at most theatres including Arena Stage, Signature Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Roundhouse, Washington Shakespeare Company, Mill Mountain, Baltimore Theatre Festival, Rep Stage, Olney Theatre, Potomac Theatre Project, and the much missed Consenting Adults Theatre, Freedom Stage, The American Century Theatre and Source Theatre. Favorite roles include Terry in Sideman (Helen Hayes Nomination for Outstanding Actress) and Florence Foster Jenkins in Souvenir at 1st Stage, Elizabeth in The Crucible and Mary in A House in the Country with Charter Theatre (Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Actress), and Claire in The Two-Character Play at Spooky Action. Lee has earned an additional three Helen Hayes nominations for performance.As an educator, Lee has taught or served as a Guest Artist at Colleges and Universities across the nation including Emerson, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, UVA, Charlottesville, University of Maryland, College Park, and Middlebury College. Lee has a B.F.A. in the Performing Arts from George Mason University and an M.F.A. in Acting from The Catholic University of America.