You are invited to “A Medley for Margaret Fuller,” a dramatic presentation launching a series of festivities in celebration of the Margaret Fuller 2010 Bicentennial. Eight actors playing the part of Margaret Fuller will read from her journals, letters, articles, and books. The award winning playwright, Laurie James, will direct, and Professor Marc Dolan will offer an interpretive analysis. It will be held at Proshansky Auditorium, CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Ave, New York City on May 6, at 7:30 PM. There is no admission charge.

The event is presented by the UU Woman’s Association and UU Women & Religion-MetroDistrict. Co-sponsors are The Center for the Study of Women and Society, American Studies, and English Department. It is funded in part by The Fund for Unitarian Universalism and UUWA.

The purpose of the many Bicentennial events is to widen common knowledge of Margaret Fuller’s significance and to reclaim her place in history, literature, and memory. World famous in the 1840s, she has largely been forgotten and woefully left out of texts. Yet Fuller’s contribution to America is enormous; with her book, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, she laid the groundwork for the women’s rights revolution in the USA. As journalist and one of our first literary critics, her words appeared regularly on the front page of Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune, and were read by everyone who wanted to keep up with what was most current. Among other accomplishments, she became first war correspondent when she stayed through the Italian Revolution of 1848-9 and sent home dispatches, some of her most heartrending work.

Laurie James, who is the adaptor and director of “A Medley for Margaret Fuller,” has achieved critical acclaim with her original solo drama on Margaret Fuller which she has toured throughout the United States and parts of the world. Her books are, Men, Women, and Margaret Fuller, The Wit and Wisdom of Margaret Fuller, Why Margaret Fuller Is Forgotten, and How I Got to Harvard.