Authors on Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard

Authors On Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard

Regina McBride presents The White Deer

Rachel Pastan presents We're So Lucky to Live Here

Wine reception to follow

Critically acclaimed authors Regina McBride and Rachel Pastan discuss their newly published novels and shared inspiration in Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, one of the most important plays of the modern canon.

In her exquisitely crafted sixth novel The White Deer, McBride transports readers to the Ukrainian countryside in the summer of 1879, where 19-year-old Chekhov meets and begins a romantic friendship with Vera Denisova. Suspended in the long, extended light of their summer days, their time together inspires The Cherry Orchard, as they wander the estate in hopes of sighting a white deer—an omen of future happiness—struggling to come to terms with their feelings for one another and the profoundly changed world that is waiting for each of them at season’s end.

The story of a young theater director who, after her mother’s death, stages Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard in her childhood home, Pastan's We're So Lucky to Live Here is a beautiful and moving inquiry into grief, love, housing affordability, and the transformative power of art. Through the process of putting on the play with members of her town’s community, our protagonist heals old breaches, reevaluates her relationship with her difficult mother, and weaves a new, non-traditional family for herself.

McBride and Pastan read from and discuss their books, before an audience Q&A and signings.