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Acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns and America's premier artist residency program, The MacDowell Colony, will team up on September 5, 2003, for a benefit to support and enhance MacDowell's mission. The evening will begin at 7:30 pm.

The Colony, the oldest artists' residency program in the United States, has provided time and space for more than 5,500 individuals worldwide and has nurtured the creative talents of such artists as Thornton Wilder, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, and more recently Alice Walker, Jonathan Franzen, and Meredith Monk. Awarding fellowships on the basis of talent alone, MacDowell has a 96-year legacy of supporting the work of architects, visual artists, composers, filmmakers, writers, and interdisciplinary artists. In recognition of its outstanding contribution to American culture, MacDowell was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1997.

“As a New Hampshire resident, I'm proud that MacDowell was founded in our state,” says Ken Burns, a longtime MacDowell Colony board member. “The belief in an individual's potential to contribute something of value is demonstrated beautifully at the Colony. MacDowell's success has proven itself over and over and inspired the birth of residency programs around the world. I feel privileged to serve on the board of the very first one.”

Burns, who is giving MacDowell supporters a sneak peek at his new film, Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip, will be on hand after the screening to take questions from the audience.

Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip celebrates the spirit of adventure and daring that is uniquely American as it follows Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson on the first-ever cross-country road trip in 1903. Jackson, on a whim and $50 bet, traveled from San Francisco to the East Coast in a 20-horsepower car, intent on becoming the first person to traverse the nation in a “horseless carriage.” In classic Burns fashion, the documentary is personal, moving, and funny. Two-time Academy Award-winner Tom Hanks provides the voice for Dr. Jackson.

Writer and co-producer Dayton Duncan will join the conversation at the Colonial Theatre. Duncan is the author of eight books and has written articles for the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and Old Farmer's Almanac. He has frequently collaborated with Burns, serving as a consultant to Burns' Emmy-winning series The Civil War and Baseball. He also wrote and co-produced Burns' Lewis and Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery and Mark Twain.

To order tickets for this unique event, please stop in or call the Colonial Theatre in Keene at 1.866.468.7619 or 603.352.2033. You may also go online at www.thecolonial.org or www.macdowellcolony.org. Tickets to the screening are $19 and $29, respectively. Dress Circle tickets for the event and a reception with Ken Burns are $100. To become a benefit sponsor - which includes two Dress Circle tickets, special seating, the reception, and feature placement on the evening's program - please call 212.535.9690.