Kathleen Chalfant has played a Mormon, a rabbi, a doctor, Ethel Rosenberg and “the world’s oldest living Bolshevik” — all in one play (“Angels in America”). Fourteen years before Cynthia Nixon, she shaved her head for a prize-winning turn in “Wit” and, a few years ago, performed in two off-Broadway plays at once, careening between theaters in a limo. “I’ve just been so lucky in the things I’ve gotten to do,” she says. Though she pops up now and then on TV’s “CSI,” Chalfant is most comfortable onstage — these days in “Red Dog Howls,” at downtown’s New York Theatre Workshop. Apparently, her love of performing is catching: Her son, David, is a musician, and her daughter, Andromache, a set designer. Here’s what’s in her library.
Secret Venice
by Thomas Jonglez and Paola Zoffoli
We lived in Rome for a while — our son’s first language was Italian — and for the last 14 years, we’ve rented a house in Tuscany. This is part of a series of guidebooks, “local guides by local people.” It’s a little bit like a treasure hunt: There are often small things they talk about here that you’d never find otherwise.
An Evil Eye
by Jason Goodwin
Goodwin’s written a series of thrillers based on the Ottoman Empire between the 1830s and ’40s, when it was opening to the West. His main character is a eunuch who used to work in a harem and is a kind of special agent for the sultan. Each book is based around a particular event, this one on the Greek revolution. It gave me great background for this play.
John G: The Authorized Biography of John Gielgud
by Sheridan Morley
I actually saw Gielgud in London a month or two before he died — we nearly ran over him in a taxi! He’s always been an actor I admired. The book goes through his career practically day by day. He had all the doubts and concerns that plague lesser theater people. Every actor should read it.
Cucina Rustica
by Viana La Place and Evan Kleiman
The recipes are simple, wonderful and foolproof, and they taste like food you eat in Italy. There’s this great lentil soup I make all the time, a wonderful hearty soup you eat poured over a piece of bruschetta, roasted bread with olive oil and garlic. Lentil soup is healing and comforting, and it couldn’t be simpler!