British playwright David Edgar will lecture on Friday, Oct. 31, at Brigham Young University. The first lecture, "Pentecost to Babel," will be at 1 p.m. in the Museum of Art Auditorium and is open to the public. At 3 p.m. faculty and theatre majors are invited to a discussion of "Playwriting and Politics" in the Nelke Experimental Theatre.
Edgar may be best known for "Nicholas Nickleby," an adaptation of Charles Dickens' novel, for which he won the Tony Award. The play was performed at Aldwych (1980), the Plymouth Theatre in New York (1981), and later developed for television broadcast (1982).
"David Edgar reveals his daring ideas as a playwright, and he has a fine eye for detail," said Wade Jacoby, director of the Center for the Study of Europe and associate professor of political science at BYU. "He understands European politics in a way few politicians ever could and is an ideal person to address a combined humanities and social science audience."
His latest work addresses a theme closer to Utah, "Mothers Against" and Daughters of the Revolution." Edgar's two-play cycle explores the "right" and "left" of an American 1960s gubernatorial campaign in an unnamed Western state. The plays were jointly commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which opened last March in Ashland, and the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, where the plays will open next month.
Other than Shakespeare, Edgar is the only playwright to have been directed by Trevor Nunn at the Royal Shakespeare Company the national Theatre, and in film.
He is also the only living playwright to have had original plays directed by Trevor Nunn and Sir Peter Hall while they were artistic directors of the RSC and National Theatre respectively.
His visit is sponsored by the Center for the Study of Europe. For more information, contact Wade Jacoby, (801) 422-6254.
Writer: Lee Simons
