Actress Brenda Bynum takes on Flannery O'Connor

Mystery and manners come to the Balzer Theater as Atlanta actress reads from O'Connor's letters

By Andrew Alexander Friday February 18, 2011 03:54 PM EST

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Actress Brenda Bynum will give a dramatic reading from the letters of Flannery O'Connor on Monday, February 21, at 7:30 pm as part of the Balzer Theater's on-going series of one-actor performances of Southern writers. (The series began a few weeks ago with Brenda Currin as Eudora Welty and continues on March 28 with John Maxwell as William Faulkner and on April 18 with Jeremy Lawrence as Tennessee Williams).

Bynum has previously given dramatic readings from the letters of O'Connor at Emory, and those who were lucky enough to catch the performances know what a brilliant match the actress' talents are for the witty, acerbic, shrewd, no-nonsense voice of the Georgia writer. It's also a great chance to get a super-sneaky sneak-peek of a much anticipated up-coming show. In April, Bynum will take on the part of another savagely astute woman, Violet Weston, in the Tony- and Pulitzer-winning play August: Osage County when it has its Atlanta premiere at the Alliance Theater. The roles are very different in their particulars, but there's enough synergy between the two women—O'Connor and Weston—for those anticipating the Alliance's big premiere to get a sense of what's in store. The part of Weston in Osage is supposedly one of the best and most challenging roles for a woman to come out of the American theater in decades (No less than Meryl Streep herself is slated to play Violet in the up-coming movie version).

Actress Brenda Bynum will give a dramatic reading of letters by Flannery O’Connor on Monday, February 21, at 7:30 pm at the Balzer Theater, 84 Luckie Street NW. Admission is free. For additional information, visit http://www.cas.gsu.edu/ August: Osage County opens in mid-April at the Alliance.





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