Murray Horwitz, Director of American Film Institute’s Silver Theater and Cultural Center, to discuss the “Silver Age of Documentary Film”. Thursday, March 29, 2007

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY – He started out as a clown in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus – and went on to create and co-author Ain't Misbehavin', one of the longest-running musicals in Broadway history.

[Left: Murray Horowitz] Murray Horwitz later served as vice president for cultural programming for National Public Radio, before taking on his current position as director of the American Film Institute's Silver Theater and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, MD. He will provide a cultural commentary on today's filmmaking during a lecture entitled "State of the Art: The Current Silver Age of Documentary Film?" on Thursday, March 29 at 5:30 p.m. in the Rosenwald Screening Room of Vassar College's Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film.

Horwitz won a Tony, a Grammy, and a New York Drama Critics Circle award for Ain't Misbehavin'. He also received two Peabody Awards for his work at NPR - one for the series Making the Music (a collaboration with trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis) and the other for The NPR 100, which highlighted the 100 most significant American musical works of the twentieth century. Horwitz has written for the motion picture community, directed network television programs and acted for the stage, screen, and television. He also wrote song lyrics for John Harbison's opera, The Great Gatsby, which was performed at the Metropolitan Opera in 2002. Horwitz is a graduate of Kenyon College.

The American Film Institute's (AFI) Silver Theatre and Cultural Center is dedicated to artists, educators, and the audiences of the world. AFI is the preeminent organization dedicated to advancing and preserving the art of film, television, and other forms of the moving image. AFI presents the AFI Los Angeles International Film Festival and the AFI National Theater at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

Horwitz's lecture is sponsored by the Office of the Dean of the Faculty.

Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.

Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations or information on accessibility should contact Campus Activities Office at (845) 437-5370. Without sufficient notice, appropriate space and/or assistance may not be available.

Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.

This article was posted on Wednesday, March 21st, 2007.