Jane Alexander "Command Performance" Signed First Edition w/COA [Sealed]

Personally signed by Jane Alexander

SIGNED FIRST EDITION 

Norwalk, CT. Easton Press. Jane Alexander "Command Performance" Signed Limited First Edition. Limited to only 1,200 signed and numbered copies. No dust-jacket as issued. Full genuine leather with Certificate of Authenticity and Collector's Notes. Sealed.

Jane Alexander had never been involved in mainstream politics and was happily engaged in her acting career when she was asked to consider becoming head of the embattled National Endowment for the Arts in the early 1990s. When, during her first visit to the Hill, Senator Strom Thurmond barked at her, "You gonna fund pornography?" she knew it would be a rough ride. Nothing had quite prepared her for the role of madame chairman. Her tenure coincided with the ascent of the infamous 104th Congress, presided over by Speaker Newt Gingrich, and its campaign to eliminate the Endowment completely. In Command Performance, Alexander brings a Washington outsider's perspective and an actor's eye for the telling human detail to an anecdote-filled story of the art of politics and the politics of art. And at the start of a new administration in Washington, she reminds us why we need art and why government should be in the business of supporting it.

Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews:

A well-written account of Alexander's 1993-97 term as head of the National Endowment of the Arts, smoothly interwoven with tales of her stage and screen life.

Until the NEA appointment, Alexander's only bureaucratic experience was as a politically active citizen (although she was urged to run for public office after portraying Eleanor Roosevelt on a television program). Her commitment to the NEA was bolstered by her role in The Great White Hope, which earned her a Tony Award and an Oscar nomination and was developed with an NEA grant. The organizing principle of her 15 theatrical chapter titles, divided into two acts and bookended by a prologue and epilogue, smartly links Alexander's professional world onstage with her stint in the theater of politics. "The Audition," "The Rehearsal," and "Curtain Up" detail the intricate voyage through nomination and confirmation. On the heels of the swearing-in comes the process of learning the ropes and expanding her list of useful acquaintances. The many profiles of movers and shakers, for and against the NEA, reveal a dry authorial wit and add human interest. No sooner did this Washington outsider learn to deal with Beltway insiders than she was confronted with the Gingrich Congress, which turned her plan to increase NEA funding and visibility into a battle of containment - if not extinction. The agency survived, but a personal tragedy and mounting disenchantment with the time-wasting politicization of the legislative process prompted Alexander to resign. She compares the frustrating ditherings of bureaucracy to the results-oriented production of a play (which benefits from a more collaborative atmosphere for settling differences). The author's intelligence and personable quality, combined with her large cast of political and show-business celebrities, make for an entertaining and informative discussion of important arts issues.

About the Author

Jane Alexander (born October 28, 1939) is an American author, actress, and former director of the National Endowment for the Arts. She is a Tony Award winner and two-time Emmy Award winner.

Alexander made her Broadway debut in 1968 in The Great White Hope and won the 1969 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. Other Broadway credits include 6 Rms Riv Vu (1972), The Night of the Iguana (1988), The Sisters Rosensweig (1993) and Honour (1998). She has received a total of seven Tony Award nominations and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1994.

She starred in the film version of The Great White Hope in 1970 and received the first of four Academy Award nominations for her performance. Her subsequent Oscar nominations were for All the President's Men (1976), Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), and Testament (1983). An eight-time Emmy nominee, she received her first nomination for playing Eleanor Roosevelt in Eleanor and Franklin (1976), a role that required her to age from 18 to 60. She has won two Emmys for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie for Playing for Time (1980) and Warm Springs (2005).