YALE-NEW HAVEN DOCTORS TO SPEAK
AT SYMPOSIUM FOR LET ME DOWN EASY JAN. 27

NEW HAVEN - A pair of Yale-New Haven doctors interviewed by Anna Deavere Smith for Long Wharf Theatre's world premiere production of Let Me Down Easy will appear at the theatre's symposium series.

The title of the symposium is "Talk to Us: Yale-New Haven Hospital Doctors Asghar Rastegar and Forrester Lee on Medicine, the Human Body and Being Interviewed by Anna Deavere Smith."

The talk will take place on Sunday, Jan. 27, on the Mainstage following the 2 pm matinee performance. The approximate starting time is about 4:45 pm. Long Wharf Theatre dramaturg and literary manager Beatrice Basso will moderate the talk.

Anna Deavere Smith's newest one-woman show - inspired by interviews conducted as a visiting professor at the Yale University School of Medicine - explores the resiliency and vulnerability of the human body.

Channeling the dramatically different corporeal experiences of her many interview subjects, Smith captures a kind of grace on stage, a grace that will tell us about the resourcefulness of the human spirit.

PANELISTS' BIOS

Dr. Asghar Rastegar is Professor of Medicine at the Yale University
School of Medicine, and Associate Chairman for Academic Affairs. He is trained as an internist and nephrologist and continues to teach and
practice in both areas. As an educator, his primary interest is in
innovations in training of medical studnets, residents and nephrology
fellows. He is the recpient of multiple teaching awards for his work
at Yale and abroad.

Dr. Rastegar is actively involved in educational and clinical projects
in both Nephrology and medical educationin Russia, Iran and more
recently Africa.  He recently served as Co-Chair of the Education
Committee of the International Society of Nephrology focusing of
training of physicians in the care of patients with kidney disease in
the developing world.

He has been interviewed by Anna Deavere Smith when the Let Me Down Easy project was in its inception at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

Dr. Forrester Lee, a native of Plainfield, New Jersey, completed studies at Dartmouth College in 1968 and earned Phi Beta Kappa honors.  He moved to New York City to begin his first professional career as an urban planner in Harlem.  There he helped spark the rebirth of the 125th Street neighborhood, which includes the legendary Apollo Theater.  He also served on a task force that created a comprehensive redevelopment plan for Harlem. 

Dr. Lee embarked upon his medical career in the mid-1970’s and was admitted to Yale School of Medicine.  He graduated with honors in 1979.  From 1979 to 1982 he completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at Yale-New Haven Hospital, was Chief Resident in internal medicine and completed a Cardiology Fellowship from 1983 to 1985.  From 1988 to 1995, Dr. Lee served as program director of Cardiovascular Medicine at Yale and as Medical Director of Cardiac Transplantation and Heart Failure for the School of Medicine and Yale-New Haven Hospital.   He has published articles in heart failure and transplantation as well as in the fields of mathematical and computer applications in nuclear medicine and cardiac physiology.  He was promoted to Professor of Medicine at Yale in 2003.

In 1995 Dr. Lee was named the first Assistant Dean to head the Office of Multicultural Affairs at Yale School of Medicine.  This new office was created to guide the medical school in facing the health care challenges of an increasingly diverse society.  He has developed programs to increased diversity among students and faculty and to improve the opportunities for underrepresented minority students to pursue careers in biomedical science.  He is the principal investigator on major grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.  He is currently Interim Chief of Cardiovascular Medicine at Yale.

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LONG WHARF THEATRE, founded in 1965, is recognized as a leader in American theater, producing fresh and imaginative revivals of classics and modern plays, rediscoveries of neglected works and a variety of world and American premieres.

More than 30 Long Wharf productions have transferred virtually intact to Broadway or off-Broadway, including the 2005 production of BFE by Julia Cho, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning plays Wit by Margaret Edson, The Shadow Box by Michael Cristofer, and The Gin Game by D.L. Coburn.

Long Wharf has received New York Drama Critics Awards, Obie Awards, the Margo Jefferson Award for Production of New Works, a Special Citation from the Outer Critics Circle, and the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre.

~ End of Release ~

Steven Scarpa
Public Relations Manager
Long Wharf Theatre
222 Sargent Drive
New Haven, CT  06511
Direct: 203-772-8255
Fax: 203-776-2287
Email: steven.scarpa@longwharf.org

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