New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), the anchor cultural institution for the city of Newark and the state of New Jersey, in collaboration with the Newark Public Library, will present PHILIP ROTH UNBOUND, a weekend-long festival that will celebrate, challenge and explore the life, legacy and work of novelist and Newark-native Philip Roth, on what would have been his 90th birthday weekend.
 
Beginning Friday, March 17, and concluding Sunday, March 19, 2023 NJPAC will host a three-day series of entertaining and engaging events, featuring over forty of the most prominent writers, actors, artists, journalists and public intellectuals working today. Designed to appeal to audiences of all backgrounds, whatever their level of familiarity with Roth’s work, the program will include star-studded readings, conversations, comedy, controversy and debate that will explore the significance and impact of Roth’s unique literary legacy and use his writing as a springboard to explore the broader questions it raises about life in America today. 
 
Program highlights include a fully-cast, dramatic reading of Roth’s national bestseller The Plot Against America; a preview of John Turturro and Ariel Levy’s stage adaptation of Roth’s National Book Award-winning novel Sabbath’s Theater; and a number of spirited public debates and discussions on censorship, appropriation, identity politics and more. Participants include actors Mary-Louise Parker, S. Epatha Merkerson, Morgan Spector, John Douglas Thompson, John Turturro, Marjan Neshat, Deirdre O’Connell and Jason Kravits; novelists Ayad Akhtar, Susan Choi, Joshua Cohen, Ottessa Moshfegh and Gary Shteyngart; authors and journalists Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Lauren Michele Jackson, Ariel Levy and Claudia Roth Pierpont; playwrights Chisa Hutchinson and Richard Wesley; comedian Eddie Brill; historians Sean Wilentz and Steven Zipperstein; and more to be announced.  For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit rothunbound.org