Come join for a pre-show presentation by Dylan Mayer in appreciation of Elaine May and improvisation - as well as a post-screening hangout. Patrons will also have the opportunity to get themselves A New Leaf artwork, drawn and printed for this event by Caroline Mann.

We look forward to seeing you there!

About the film: When Henry (a wealthy layabout) exhausts his inheritance, he concocts a plot to keep his luxury lifestyle afloat: find a wealthy woman with no heirs whom he can promptly woo, wed and murder. The lucky lady he winds up targeting: a botanist named Henrietta. 1971, 1h42m

Elaine May was hired as a package talent to write, direct and star in A New Leaf - and her comedic origins (that is: improvisation and its principles she designed) uniquely inform each beat of the film. Like with improv, A New Leaf’s humor is not about performers looking polished, but rather it thrives on recognizing absurd, consistent human behavior. Situations develop in ways tender, zany, dry and unsentimental — it is a kind of bluebeard black comedy with unflattering characters, indeed, yet never mean-spirited. The same can be said, to one degree or another, for each of Elaine May’s subsequent features — The Heartbreak Kid, Mikey and Nicky and Ishtar — perilous tonal tightrope-walkers, all of them.