The Year of Magical Thinking

The St. Augustine Art Association presents "The Year of Magical Thinking," with Anne Kraft playing the role of Joan Didion in this one-woman show. The performance will take place at 2 p.m. on Sunday, February 8, 2015, at the St. Augustine Art Association on 22 Marine St. in St. Augustine' downtown district.

A member of Actors' Equity Association and the Screen Actors Guild, Anne Kraft spent 25 years as a professional actor in New York before coming to St. Augustine. She won Best Actress for the her role as Blanche in Theatre Jacksonville's "A Streetcar Named Desire," and she co-founded St. Augustine's Limelight Theatre with Jean Rahner. Today, Anne continues to work closely with Jean Rahner for A Classic Theatre, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing back classic original theatrical works to St. Augustine.

In "The Year of Magical Thinking," Anne Kraft takes on the demanding role of the memoirist Joan Didion, guiding the audience through the tragedies she suffered to come out on the other side with a renewed spirit and love for life.

Edward Rubin of The New York Theatre Wire writes of Anne Kraft's performance: "[The play] makes for a deeply moving and beautifully written monologue … it is also a tour de force that allows Kraft, a master at turning words into fully blown feelings and emotions, to show her acting chops. Channeling Didion's panoply of continually changing faces, Kraft plays all the various chords of the playwright's persona with great delicacy."

Literary journalist and novelist Joan Didion's 2005 book, The Year of Magical Thinking, was an account of her grief following her husband's sudden death in 2003 and the months she spent caring for her daughter Quintana, who became seriously ill just days before her father died. The Year of Magical Thinking became a classic almost overnight, and was a 2005 National Book Award winner for Nonfiction and a Pulitzer Prize finalist in Biography/Autobiography.

In 2007, Didion adapted the book for Broadway. The play expands on the memoir and includes details on the illness and eventual death of her daughter (events she had chronicled in a second book called Blue Nights). The original play was directed by David Hare and opened with Vanessa Redgrave as the sole cast member. Since then, "The Year of Magical Thinking" has been performed all over the world, from Sydney to Salzburg to Cheltenham.

Admission: $20. Call (904) 824-2310 to reserve seats and purchase tickets.

When? Sunday, February 8,  2015, at 2 p.m.

Where? The St. Augustine Art Association is located at 22 Marine St. in St. Augustine.

Proceeds from this performance benefit the art education and outreach programs of the St. Augustine Art Association, a 501c3 non-profit organization.