HUC-JIR's Blanche and Irving Laurie Lecture in Jewish Women’s Studies
Presents Composer/Writer Elizabeth Swados

Thursday, March 7, 2002 at 7:30 p.m.
Leo Baeck Temple, Los Angeles

Award winning director, composer, writer and teacher Elizabeth Swados will share an evening of drama and song at Leo Baeck Temple on March 7, 2002 at 7:30 p.m. The event is the Blanche and Irving Laurie Lecture in Jewish Women’s Studies being presented by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in partnership with Leo Baeck Temple. This free lecture and performance is made possible by a grant from the Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation.

Ms. Swados is serving as this year's Rabbi Sally J. Priesand Visiting Professor of Jewish Women's Studies at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and has been writing music, theater, and books professionally for almost 30 years. She has been nominated for Tony, Drama Desk, Ace, and Emmy awards. She has won several Obies, Outer Critics Circle Awards, a PEN Citation, and an Anne Frank National Foundation for Jewish Culture award.

Her Broadway credits include Runaways and Doonesbury. Her off-Broadway credits include Alice in Wonderland (with Meryl Streep), Dispatches, The Haggadah, Jerusalem, Rap Music Ronnie (with Gary Trudeau), and Missionaries. She has published three novels and two nonfiction books, and Milos Forman and Marlon Brando have optioned her works. She recently adapted her children's book Dreamtective into a script for Disney. Ms. Swados is in the throes of creating a new musical piece called The Three Gods, working on another musical based on the book of Judith and a documentary film about women’s obsession with their hair titled Haircut. Her new children's book Hey, You Come Here will be on the shelves shortly. She has taught at NYU and has conducted workshops at many colleges and regional theaters across the country and in forums in France, Israel, Africa and Brazil. Her CD, The Bible Women went in the NASA Space Shuttle as a choice of music for Astronaut Alan Hoffman.

For more about Elizabeth Swados and the Rabbi Sally J. Priesand Visiting Professorship, please click on: http://huc.edu/newspubs/pressroom/2002/swados.html