Officials for the Fredericksburg Forum, which is hosted by the University of Mary Washington, have announced the speakers for the upcoming 2008-09 season.
The series will begin on Tuesday, October 21 with political satire group Capitol Steps followed by news veteran Sam Donaldson on Tuesday, March 24. Each program will be held at 8 p.m. in the university’s Dodd Auditorium, located in George Washington Hall.
The Capitol Steps is a group of Congressional staffers-turned-comedians who travel the country satirizing the very people and places that once employed them. The troupe performs more than 500 shows a year all over the country. Since it began, the Capitol Steps has recorded 26 albums, including the latest, “I’m So Indicted.”The group has been featured on NBC, ABC, CBS and PBS and can be heard on National Public Radio stations nationwide during “Politics Takes a Holiday” radio specials.
The Capitol Steps was born in 1981 when three staffers for Senator Charles Percy created political song parodies and satirical skits to entertain at Christmas parties. The group became an instant hit. Since then, the Steps has performed in more than 5,000 venues in 49 states and for the last five presidents.
The material is updated continually whether to include George Bush’s latest geography lesson “Korea” (to West Side Story’s “Maria”) or the Steps’ own patriotic “God Bless My SUV.” Whether it’s politicians or the Supreme Court, the Capitol Steps is an equal opportunity offender.
Sam Donaldson, a 40-year ABC News veteran, currently is appearing on ABC News Now, the ABC News digital network. His daily half-hour show, “Politics Live,” is an unscripted dialogue with numerous guests and commentators discussing the top political news stories of the day.
Sam Donaldson
Sam Donaldson, a 40-year ABC News veteran, currently is appearing on ABC News Now, the ABC News digital network. His daily half-hour show, “Politics Live,” is an unscripted dialogue with numerous guests and commentators discussing the top political news stories of the day.
Donaldson served two appointments as chief White House correspondent for ABC News from January 1998 to August 1999 and from 1977-1989, covering Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. He also co-anchored “PrimeTime Live”; the ABC News Sunday morning broadcast, “This Week With Sam Donaldson & Cokie Roberts”; and “The Sam Donaldson Show – Live in America,” a daily news/talk radio program broadcast on ABC News Radio affiliates that tackled the day’s top stories and important issues.Donaldson has covered every national political convention since 1964 with the exception of the 1992 Republican Convention in Houston. He reported on the presidential campaigns of Sen. Barry Goldwater, Sen. Eugene McCarthy and Sen. Hubert Humphrey as well as Presidents Carter and Reagan and Gov. Michael Dukakis. He also reported as an eyewitness on Spiro Agnew’s no contest plea in a Baltimore courtroom that forced Agnew’s resignation from the vice presidency.
Donaldson has received numerous honors, including Broadcaster of the Year in 1998 from the National Press Foundation, the Best Television White House Correspondent in the Business in 1985 from The Washington Journalism Review and the Best Television Correspondent in the Business in 1986, 1987, 1988 and 1999. He has received four Emmy Awards and three George Foster Peabody Awards for excellence in radio and television reporting.
Now entering its 13th season, the Fredericksburg Forum is a community-sponsored program underwritten by season ticket sales that brings nationally known speakers to the Fredericksburg community and the university. Tickets for the 2008-09 season, which cover both programs, are $50 for general admission, $75 for orchestra seating and $100 for patron seating, which includes a post-event reception with the speakers.
For ticket information, contact the Fredericksburg Forum Office at (540) 654-1055.