The Emily Company, the Salt Lake-based nonprofit theater company that staged "The Belle of Amherst" last spring for an extended run at the McCune Mansion, has been granted the rights to produce a Salt Lake edition of the current off-Broadway hit "Wit," by Margaret Edson.
The central character in "Wit" is Dr. Vivian Bearing, a brilliant and brutally demanding English professor and specialist in the life-and-death themes of John Donne's Holy Sonnets. The hospitalized professor, however, is battling her own life-and-death issue -- ovarian cancer.The award-winning drama will be staged this summer at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center. Proceeds from the production will be contributed to the American Cancer Society (just as proceeds from "The Belle of Amherst" were earmarked specifically for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation).
"We are honored to bring this incredibly important drama in a regional premiere to Salt Lake audiences," said producing artistic director Katharine Clark Reilly, who performed the role of Emily Dickinson in "Amherst."
Commenting on "Wit," she noted that it is "a play whose theme, unfortunately, touches too many of us. In the drama of the human condition, cancer is the great equalizer. Edson, the playwright, tackled the subject with bravery and compassion. It is a coup for a young company like ours to be entrusted with a new major play."
"Wit" has already won several major awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for drama, the Drama Desk Award and an off-Broadway "Obie."
First-time playwright Edson teaches kindergarten in Atlanta.