Pulitzer Prize winning playwright and screenwriter Robert Schenkkan will discuss the making of President Johnson’s Civil Rights Act of 1964 with Julian Zelizer, Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School.  Schenkkan’s play “All The Way” explores LBJ first year in office and the campaign to pass the Civil Rights Act.  “All The Way” won the 2014 Tony Award for Outstanding Play, and actor Bryan Cranston won the Tony Award for Best Actor for his performance as LBJ.  In 2016 HBO presented a filmed version of the play, also starring Bryan Cranston.

Robert Schenkkan is an accomplished playwright and screenwriter who received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1992 for his play “The Kentucky Cycle.” His other plays include “Lewis and Clark Reach the Euphrates,” “By the Rivers of Babylon,” “Handler,” “Heaven on Earth,” “Final Passage,” “1992,” “The Devil and Daniel Webster,” and “The Dream Thief.” Schenkkan’s “All the Way” was the 2013 recipient of the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History.

Julian Zelizer is among the pioneers in the revival of American political history. He is the author of numerous books, the most recent of which is “The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society” (2015). He has edited 10 books on American political history, with subjects ranging from politics and the media to the presidency of George W. Bush. Zelizer is a frequent commentator in the international and national media on political history and contemporary politics and is a weekly columnist on CNN.com.