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Pulitzer
Prize-winning Playwright to Lead Community Discussion
Savannah, GA—January
21, 2005—Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Margaret Edson will lead
a community discussion of her play, Wit, the story of a renowned
English professor who has been diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer.
Members of the community are invited to join health professionals from
Memorial Health University Medical Center (MHUMC) and honors students
from Armstrong Atlantic State University (AASU) for a lively and very
moving discussion, February 5. The discussion will be held at 9 a.m. at
Memorial’s Medical Education Auditorium. It is free and open to the
public.
Wit revolves around main character Vivian Bearing, an English professor
who is suffering from end-stage ovarian cancer. The play takes the audience
through Vivian’s ordeals with chemotherapy as well as her experiences
with physicians who are more interested in the research data she can provide
than her well being and comfort.
Edson was inspired to write Wit after her experiences as a clerk
in a cancer and AIDS ward at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda,
Maryland. She wrote the play in 1991 and premiered it in 1995 at the South
Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, California, the only theater to accept
the play. Wit won the Pulitzer Prize in 1999. In 2001, Mike Nichols
and Emma Thompson adapted the play for an HBO production with Thompson
playing the starring role.
Edson graduated magna cum laude from Smith College with a degree in Renaissance
history. She’s worked as a hot dog sales person, waited tables, sold
ice cream and painted the walls of a French Domincan convent. She earned
a master’s degree in literature from Georgetown University, but when
she volunteered in D.C.’s public school system she discovered her
passion for teaching. She now teaches at John Hope Elementary School in
Atlanta.
Edson's visit
is made possible through an AASU Teaching and Learning Grant and a generous
donation by MHUMC. For more about joining the discussion, contact Nancy
Remler at 912.921.5692.
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