The National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame will host a sneak preview of "Seabiscuit, an American Experience" documentary for PBS, on Wednesday, August 21 and Thursday, August 22. A sports hero of the 1930s Depression era, Seabiscuit's rags-to-riches tale is now brought to PBS by award-winning filmmaker Stephen Ives, and will be broadcast nationally in the spring of 2003 as part of American Experience, PBS's acclaimed history series from WGBH Boston.
The premiere celebration on Wednesday will begin at 6 p.m. with cocktails, music, and a buffet dinner followed by the movie at 8:00 p.m. Filmmaker Stephen Ives will be on hand to introduce the movie and answer questions. Tickets are $75 each.
The sneak preview will be shown again on Thursday at 10:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Tickets are available the day of the show with museum admission. The museum opens at 9:00 a.m. Seating is limited.
According to Stephen Ives, "Seabiscuit's story provides an ideal prism through which to view numerous facets of Depression-era American life, including: the nation's desperate search for escapism, the explosion of advertising and radio, and the cultural dominance of horse-racing itself, the most popular sport of that era."
Seabiscuit is Ives' most recent film in a long line of successful programs for PBS and other venues. In May 2001 his portrait of the world's smallest opera house, Amato: a love affair with opera, received the Audience Award at the Doubletake Film Festival and Ives was nominated for Outstanding Directorial Achievement by the Directors Guild of America. Other landmark projects by Ives include The West, an award-winning PBS program seen by 38 million viewers in 1996; Lindbergh, which premiered the third season of The American Experience series in 1990, and The Congress, a 90-minute PBS special directed by Ken Burns and co-produced by Stephen Ives. Ives is currently in production on Reporting America at War, a three-hour series for PBS that looks at 20th century American history through the eyes of the war correspondents who witnessed the pivotal conflicts of their time.
