Introduction by Joan Churchill

Lily Tomlin, by veteran documentarians Nick Broomfield and Joan Churchill, has for years been nearly impossible to see, but for this occasion Film at Lincoln Center will present it in a newly remastered version. The film follows Tomlin and her team through the many months of preparing The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe for its Broadway debut, workshopping the performance with audiences across the country and gradually refining its every facet. Replete with evocative, intimate episodes—Tomlin and Jane Wagner as they review a note-laden script, movement exercises with Tomlin’s acting coach Peggy Feury, backstage banter—the work allows a rare, intimate view into the creative process behind the legendary one-woman show.