Irvington Town Hall Theater (ITHT) launches the third season of its Stage Door Reading Series on Sunday, October 16 at 3 p.m. with a reading of the highly acclaimed one-wom
an show, Regeneration by Dr. Nancy Rappaport.
Until she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015 at age 55, Rappaport was used to tending wounds—just not her own. Regeneration is the product of recovery contemplations by a doctor, wife, and mother of three—presenting a compelling range of emotions and perspectives.
Town Hall Theater Commissioner Laurie Chock said, “Harvard professor, psychiatrist, poet, author, and now breast cancer survivor and playwright, Nancy Rappaport, in her one-woman show, astounds us with her ability to find the absurd, the funny, the profound, and the heart-warming in her journey from cancer back to health.”
Dr. Rappaport is an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a child psychiatrist at the Cambridge Health Alliance. She has worked for 23 years with the Cambridge Public Schools at a school-based health center, where she develops concrete strategies for struggling students and offers professional development for teachers.
Rappaport’s memoir, In Her Wake: A Child Psychiatrist Explores the Mystery of Her Mother’s Suicide, received the Julia Ward Howe Book Award from the Boston Authors Club. She is co-author of The Behavior Code, a guidebook for teachers who work with challenging kids.
Although Rappaport labels herself “100% recovered,” she continues to ponder her own mortality. “I am not sure I have totally accepted it,” she admitted. “I’d say that I am now looking at it closely.”
After decades as a hard-charging New England professional—a marathoner, as well—Rappaport says she is learning “to make an investment in being present in the life I am living.”
Following the reading, there will be a Q&A with the audience. All tickets are $10 and can be purchased in advance at www.irvingtontheater.com or at the door.