Virtual Selected Shorts: Choose Your Own Reality

What if, with a little willpower, an uncertain world could give way to something bold, thrilling, and new? Join host BD WONG (_Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens_), alongside performers D’ARCY CARDEN (_The Good Place_), PAUL GIAMATTI (_Billions_), and MARIN IRELAND (_Sneaky Pete_) as they dare to question the nature of REALITY—and then attempt to remake it, with short fiction about soothsayers, alien invasions, and an uncanny force known only as Greg Stalfa.VIRTUAL SELECTED SHORTS WILL PREMIERE ON MAY 27 @7:30PM on the Symphony Space YouTube channel. [https://www.youtube.com/user/SymphonysSpace] BLIND ORACLE OF MACTAN by NATHAN GO Performed by BD WONG WHAT IT WOULD LOOK LIKE by SHERRIE FLICK Performed by MARIN IRELAND WHO IS GREG STALFA AND WHAT DOES HE MEAN? by RACHEL YODER Performed by D’ARCY CARDEN THE EYES HAVE IT by PHILIP K. DICK Performed by PAUL GIAMATTI TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE ARTISTS THE ARTISTS (IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER) D’ARCY CARDEN is best known for playing Janet on _The Good Place_, for which she was nominated for a Critics’ Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. She can also be seen recurring as Natalie in the HBO series _Barry_. Her film and television credits include _Broad City_, _Other People_, _Crazy Ex-Girlfriend_, _Veep_, _Inside Amy Schumer_, _Greener Grass_, _Let It Snow_, _Bombshell_, _Single Parents_, and _Bonding_. She will appear in the forthcoming television series _A League of Their Own_. Carden performs regularly at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. Over a writing career that spanned three decades, PHILIP K. DICK (1928-1982) published 36 science fiction novels and 121 short stories. Many of his novels and short stories have been adapted to film and television, notably: _Blade Runner_ (based on _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?_), _Total Recall_, _Minority Report_, _A Scanner Darkly_, and _The Man in the High Castle_. The recipient of critical acclaim and numerous awards throughout his career, Dick was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2005, and in 2007 the Library of America published a selection of his novels in three volumes. Dick is the first science fiction writer to be included in the series. His work has been translated into more than twenty-five languages. SHERRIE FLICK is the author of the flash fiction chapbook _I Call This Flirting_, the novel _Reconsidering Happiness_, which was a semi-finalist for the VCU First Novelist Award, and the short story collections _Whiskey, Etc_. and _Thank Your Lucky Stars_. Her work, both fiction and nonfiction, has been featured in _Prairie Schooner_, _North American Review_, _The Wall Street Journal_, _Creative Nonfiction_, _Pittsburgh Quarterly_, and _Pittsburgh Post-Gazette_, among other publications. She currently teaches in the Food Studies and MFA programs at Chatham University. PAUL GIAMATTI has been honored with two Golden Globe Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and an Emmy for his work in film and television. His screen credits include _American Splendor_, _Sideways_, _Cinderella Man_, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award, the title role in the HBO miniseries _John Adams_, _Barney’s Version_, _Win Win_, _12 Years a Slave_, _Love & Mercy_, _Inside Amy Schumer_, _Straight Outta Compton_, _BoJack Horseman_, _At Home with Amy Sedaris_, and _Lodge 49_. Giamatti currently stars in Showtime’s _Billions_, which recently premiered its fifth season. He will appear in the forthcoming films _Gunpowder Milkshake_, _A Mouthful of Air_, and _Jungle Cruise_. NATHAN GO was the 2017-2018 David TK Wong Fellow at the University of East Anglia. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan, he was a 2012 PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow. His fiction has appeared in _Ploughshares_, _American Short Fiction_, _Massachusetts Review_, _Bare Life Review_, _Michigan Quarterly Review_, and the _D__es Moines Register_. He is at work on his first novel and short story collection. MARIN IRELAND was nominated for a Tony Award and won the Theater World Award for her work in _reasons to be pretty_ on Broadway. Additional stage credits, on and off-Broadway, include _Cyclone_, for which she won an Obie Award, _Blasted_, _Three Sisters_, _Marie Antoinette_, _The Big Knife_, _Kill Floor_, _Ironbound_, _Summer and Smoke_, _Blue Ridge_, and _Happy Talk_. Ireland’s screen credits include _Mildred Pierce_, _The Good Wife_, _Homeland_, _Glass Chin_, for which she was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award, _The Killing_, _The Divide_, _Masters of Sex_, _Madam Secretary_, _Girls_, _The Slap_, _Flint_, _The Irishman_, _The Good Doctor_, and three seasons on _Sneaky Pete._ She will next appear as a series regular in season two of _The Umbrella Academy_ on Netflix. BD WONG received all five major NEW YORK theater awards – the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Theatre World, and Clarence Derwent – for his Broadway debut in _M. Butterfly_. Additional theater credits include the Broadway revivals of _You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown_ and _Pacific Overtures_; and the off-Broadway productions of _The Great Leap, As Thousands Cheer, Shanghai Moon, _and _A Language of Their Own_. On screen, Wong has appeared in the films _Father of the Bride_, _Mulan_, _Seven Years In Tibet_, _Bird Box_, _Jurassic Park, _two_ Jurassic World _films_, _and in the television series _All-American Girl_, _Oz_, _Law & Order: Special Victims Unit_, _Awake_, _Madam Secretary_, _Gotham_, _American Horror Story: Apocalypse_, _Mr. Robot _(Emmy and Critics' Choice nominations), and most recently, _Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens_. RACHEL YODER’S debut novel, _Nightbitch_, is forthcoming in 2021. She is a senior agent at the Tuesday Agency and a founding editor of _draft: the journal of process_. Her writing has been awarded with The Editors' Prize in Fiction by the _Missouri Review_ and with notable distinctions in _Best American Short Stories_ and _Best American Nonrequired Reading_, and has appeared in LitHub, _The Paris Review_, _The Rumpus_, _Guernica_, _Kenyon Review_, and _Catapult Magazine_, among other publications. Yoder is a board member for the UNESCO City of Literature and currently serves as the Literary Programming Director for Mission Creek Festival in Iowa City, Iowa. CREDITS “The Eyes Have It” by Philip K. Dick, from _Science Fiction Stories, #1_, ed. Robert W. Lowndes (Columbia Publications, Inc. 1953). This story is in the public domain. “What It Would Look Like” by Sherrie Flick, from _Thank Your Lucky Stars_ (Autumn House Press, 2018). First appeared in LitHub (August 2018). Copyright © 2018 by Sherrie Flick. Used by permission of the author. “Blind Oracle of Mactan” by Nathan Go, from _American Short Fiction_ (April 2018). Copyright © 2018 by Nathan Go. Used by permission of the author. “Who Is Greg Stalfa and What Does He Mean?” by Rachel Yoder, from _Catapult Magazine_ (February 2016). Copyright © 2016 by Rachel Yoder. Used by permission of Triangle House. SELECTED SHORTS is supported by the Dungannon Foundation, sponsor of The Rea Award for the Short Story; and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, publisher of _The Best American Short Stories_, edited in 2019 by Anthony Doerr. Support is also provided by the Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund, The Shubert Foundation, The Scherman Foundation, the Henry Nias Foundation, the Charina Endowment Fund, The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, the Axe-Houghton Foundation, and the Grodzins Fund. Selected Shorts is also made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts, and with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. Symphony Space thanks our generous supporters, including our Board of Directors, Producers Circle, and members, who make our programs possible with their annual support. The Selected Shorts podcast is sponsored by Zabar’s and Zabars.com. SELECTED SHORTS is produced by Symphony Space and broadcast on more than 150 stations around the country. The series began in 1985 and enjoys sold-out performances to this day. Selected Shorts was conceived with a simple premise: take great stories by well-known and emerging writers and have them performed by terrific actors of stage and screen. Featuring stories around a lively theme, the favorite works of a guest author, or a special collaboration, each Selected Shorts event is a unique night of literature in performance. Recent readers include Ellen Burstyn, Kate Walsh, Bebe Neuwirth, Claire Danes, Michael Shannon, Kyle Maclachlan, LeVar Burton, Jane Curtin, Danielle Brooks, Cynthia Nixon, Rainn Wilson, Holly Hunter, Hugh Dancy, Joan Allen, Josh Radnor, Tony Shalhoub, Maggie Gyllenhaal, BD Wong, and more.