Show Teachers the Love!
Monday, June 7, 2021
Online at 6 p.m. EDT
Co-Chairs
Catherine Aresty
Steven Aresty
Elizabeth B. Dater
Megan Flanigan & Rick Swift
Agnes Gund
Nick Lembo
Georgette & Charles Mallory
Giovanna Marazzi & David Sassoon
Margery & Ted Mayer
Caroline S. McBride
Ilse Melamid
Sheila Nevins
Barbara G. Raho
Diana & Charles Revson
Sarah & Sean Reynolds
Mary & Alok Singh
(as of today)
Billy Collins*
Carol Crapple
Jack DeLigter
Nora DeLigter
Peter DiFiore
Laurie & Oskar Eustis*
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.*
Lucile & Richard Glasebrook
Michael Glazebrook
Tonne Goodman
Wendy Goodman
Aisha Haynes
Patricia Hayot
Joy & Emily Hurd
Diane & Jeffrey Jennings
Emily Mandelstam
Rebecca Montville & Krzysztof Kozlowski
Mary & Garrett Moran
Khalil Gibran Muhammad*
Kate Niehaus
Jane Pollock & Phil Berney
Tripp Revson
Joanie & Maurice Reznik
Leslee & David Rogath
Deborah & Chuck Royce
Monica & Rick Segal
Nadine Shaoul & Mark Schonberger
Gloria Steinem*
Sam Swope & Jim Tryforos
Trevor Swope
Will & CeCe Thompson
Wayne & Susan Tobias
Felipe & Yeou-Jey Vasconcelos
Elly & Tony Wong
Abbie Wyman
Jerry Zaks*
*led an Academy for Teachers master class
Join us online to
Show Teachers the Love!
a charming variety show in which…
Bonnie McFarlane yucks it up,
Roz Chast & Patty Marx go ukulear,
Arturo O’Farrill tickles the ivories,
Ayodele Casel taps up a storm,
Gandini Juggling challenges gravity,
and other surprise guests astonish and amaze!
Mike Birbiglia
presents
The Woodridge Award for Great Teachers.
Half our audience will be teachers, who come for free to feel the love. Half will be donors, who come to show it.
All contributions doubled by a matching fund established by our board.
Please consider donating even if you can’t attend.
The Academy for Teachers is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.
(Teachers, reserve your place here.)
Mike Birbiglia is a comedian, storyteller, director, and actor who has performed in front of audiences worldwide, from the Sydney Opera House to Carnegie Hall. His shows My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend and Thank God for Jokes were both filmed for Netflix. His most recent show, The New One, ran for ninety-nine performances on Broadway at the Cort Theatre. Mike wrote, directed, and starred in the films Sleepwalk with Me and Don’t Think Twice. His book Sleepwalk with Me and Other Painfully True Stories was a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor. As an actor, Mike has appeared on Inside Amy Schumer, Girls, and Broad City, as well as in the films Trainwreck, The Fault in Our Stars, and Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. He plays the roles of Danny Pearson on Orange Is the New Black and Oscar Langstraat on Billions. He is a contributor to This American Life. In 2017, Mike was honored with the Kurt Vonnegut Humor Award. 
Ayodele Casel has been lauded by The New York Times as one of the “Biggest Breakout Stars of 2019,” and by The New Yorker as “a tap dancer of fine-grained musicianship.” Casel was named a 2019-20 fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. Her recent collaboration with Latin jazz composer Arturo O’Farrill premiered at New York’s Joyce Theater to sold-out audiences in September 2019. Casel also premiered her one-woman show While I Have the Floor at the Spoleto Arts Festival to rave reviews. Her work is deeply expressive of identity, culture, language, and cathartic communication. Her New York City Center collaboration, the interactive On the Move, toured New York communities across the five boroughs. Hailed by the late, great Gregory Hines as “one of the top young tap dancers in the world,” Casel has become an internationally sought-after artist and powerful voice for the art form. For more information, go to www.ayodelecasel.com. 
Roz Chast has loved to draw cartoons since she was a child growing up in Brooklyn. She attended Rhode Island School of Design and majored in painting because it seemed like a more authentic art form. However, soon after graduating, she reverted to drawing cartoons and has been at it ever since. She is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling memoir Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?
Gandini Juggling Over the past 29 years, world-renowned jugglers Sean Gandini and Kati Ylä-Hokkala of have performed to hundreds of thousands of people at the world’s most prestigious festivals and venues, totalling over 6,000 shows in fifty countries. Gandini has built a reputation for innovation in artform and artist development—the company’s explorations into dance has seen them fuse juggling with Bharatanatyam, classical ballet, and contemporary dance. Their pioneering use of the notation language of siteswaps has set Gandini apart, enabling them to create breathtaking large-scale synchronized productions, such as the launch of the Millennium Dome and their participation in the London 2012 Paralympic Opening Ceremony. Currently, Gandini works with Jennifer Goggans in partnership with the Merce Cunningham Trust, and the Pulitzer Prize and Grammy award-winning composer Caroline Shaw, on LIFE, a juggling performance that is based on the choreographies of Merce Cunningham and his rich legacy.
Patricia Marx has been a New Yorker contributor since 1989, a writer for Saturday Night Live and Rugrats, and is the author of several books. Marx received a 2015 Guggenheim Fellowship and was the first woman elected to the Harvard Lampoon. She has taught screenwriting and humor writing at Princeton, NYU, and Stonybrook.
Bonnie McFarlane made her national breakthrough on NBC’s Last Comic Standing and has performed many times on The Late Show and The Tonight Show and in specials that have aired on HBO and Comedy Central. McFarlane directed the brilliant documentary Women Aren’t Funny and is the author of You’re Better than Me: A Memoir. She and her husband, comedian Rich Vos, co-host the popular podcast My Wife Hates Me.
Julianne Moore is an Academy Award and Emmy–winning actor, and the first American woman to be awarded top acting prizes at the Cannes, Berlin, and Venice film festivals. Julianne is also a New York Times best-selling author for her children’s book series, Freckleface Strawberry. She is on the Advisory Council of The Children’s Health Fund, a supporter of the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance, and in 2015, became founding chair of the Everytown for Gun Safety Creative Council, a creative community established to help amplify the movement to end gun violence in America. Julianne has most recently starred in Gloria Bell, After The Wedding and The Glorias. Future projects include the Apple+ series Lisey’s Story, Spirit Untamed, The Woman in the Window, Dear Evan Hansen, and When You Finish Saving the World.
Arturo O’Farrill, pianist, composer, and educator, was born in Mexico and grew up in New York City. He received his formal musical education at the Manhattan School of Music and the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College. Arturo’s professional career began with the Carla Bley Band and continued as a solo performer with a wide spectrum of artists including Dizzy Gillespie, Lester Bowie, Wynton Marsalis, and Harry Belafonte.