East Hampton - On Saturday, July 23, 2011, WordTheatre's "Speaking in Tongues," an evening of world class performances in support of the Pushcart Prize Fellowships sponsored by Avi Oster took place at Guild Hall in East Hampton. "Speaking in Tongues" brought the stars of "Boardwalk Empire," "True Blood," "Avatar," "Law and Order" and more with Pulitzer Prize winners, Guggenheim Fellows and PEN/Faulkner recipients. Together they celebrated The Pushcart Prize, an annual collection of stories, poems, essays and memoirs selected from hundreds of small magazines and presses throughout the world.

It featured performances by Amy Irving, CCH Pounder who traveled all the way from Toronto, "True Blood's" Chris Bauer, Colman Domingo, Harris Yulin, "Law and Order: Criminal Intent's" Kathryn Erbe, Kevin Corrigan, "Boardwalk Empire's" Vincent Piazza.

Speaking in Tongues" and was produced and directed by Cedering Fox, who founded WordTheatre in 2003. The first writer featured in a WordTheater event, Donald Hall. Hall wrote a bunch of short stories featured in The Pushcart Prize and Fox got a few actors to read and that was the first WordTheatre event. Fox wanted to make WordTheatre and The Pushcart Prize something that everyone would know about and get every great contemporary story written, acted out and recorded so they can be enjoyed for years to come.

Actress CCH Pounder who traveled all the way from Toronto. (Nicole Barylski)

"Fox's mother Siv won two Pushcart Prizes, but that is not how she got involved with The Pushcart Prize. Someone handed her a volume and she found stories she wanted to produce and direct. When she spoke to her mother about it, she found out she knew the editor Bill Henderson since she was 14. She says, "The caliber is something you don't find everyday."

The first couple of Wordtheatre events she produced and directed were all stories or poems from The Pushcart Prizes authors and The Pushcart Prize produces such great work that she continues to do benefits with authors from it and she wants to make people more aware of the work from The Pushcart Prize. Fox says that if she were going to be stuck on a deserted island she would bring any of the last 35 Pushcarts because the writing is such a high quality.

This will be the first show that isn't necessarily all Pushcart Prize authors. Some of the writers have not been nominated for The Pushcart Prize but they are big supporters of The Pushcart Prize.

Fox feels like the stories that she produces and directs for WordTheatre are like her children finding the right actor for the right story is her favorite thing. She stated, "In the audience everybody will have different opinions on who is their favorite. It is really interesting because things will resonate with people and it's different depending on their preference. The performances are always incredible."

Actress Kathryn Erbe and actor Kevin Corriganere. (Nicole Barylski)

Fox says that all the shows she has done have been incredibly good. The only way it could be better is if every seat in the house in filled. She believes that there has never been a dud and this past Saturday's performances continued that trend.