Margaret Edson
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Margaret Edson
- Born: July 4, 1961
- Birthplace: Washington, DC
Margaret Edson won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1999 for her play, W;t (Wit), about a renowned professor of poetry who deals with cancer and her hospital care, while reassessing her life through flashbacks and monologues. The play also won the Drama Desk, Dramatists Guild, Drama Desk of New York, New York Drama Critics Circle, Outer Critics Circle, Lucille Lortel, Fellowship of Southern Writers, Berilla Kerr Foundation, Susan Blackburn Prize (finalist) and Los Angeles Drama Critics awards. The semicolon in the play's name was taken from a line in the play.
A magna cum laude graduate in Renaissance History from Smith College, Edson went on to get her master's degree in English from Georgetown University. She worked in a myriad of jobs ranging from waitressing to painting to clerking in a cancer and AIDS ward in a hospital, to selling bicycles. After she received her degree from Georgetown, she taught English as a second language in DC public schools. She currently teaches kindergarten in Atlanta, GA.
Most Famous Works
- W;t (1991)
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Margaret Edson
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Works by Margaret Edson
(b. 1961)
| 1998 | Wit. This first play by an Atlanta schoolteacher receives rave reviews for its wry treatment of cancer. The plot centers on an English professor devoted to the work of John Donne who needs all of her learning, humor, and intelligence to cope with terminal ovarian cancer. In spite of the play's grim subject matter, critics call it a vivid, energizing portrait of a remarkable woman. |
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Margaret Edson
Margaret Edson (born 4 July 1961, Washington, D.C.) is an American playwright. As a child, she wrote and acted in amateur plays with neighborhood friend Julia Louis-Dreyfus. She graduated with a B.A. in Renaissance History from Smith College, and received a master's in English literature from Georgetown University. Her jobs have included being a bicycle shop sales clerk and a volunteer ESL teacher.
Edson's first play was Wit, first produced in 1995 at South Coast Repertory in California, about a John Donne scholar who is hospitalized for and dying of ovarian cancer. Edson did use her work experience in a hospital as part of the background in writing the play.[1][2] At the time of its first New York production in late 1998, Edson was a kindergarten teacher at Centennial Place Elementary School (Atlanta, Georgia). The play won her the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.[3] The award brought her a large amount of publicity, including an interview on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS. Edson has written a second play, Satisfied, whose subject is "country-gospel radio in Kentucky"--[2]still, as of April 2008, unproduced.
Edson gave the address during the commencement ceremony of 2008 at Smith College.
As of December 30, 2011 Edson teaches 6th grade social studies at Inman Middle School in the Virginia-Highland neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia.[4]
References
- ^ Peter Marks (18 September 1998). "Science and Poetry Face Death in a Hospital Room". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940CE6DB1630F93BA2575AC0A96E958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all. Retrieved 2008-03-29.
- ^ a b Kevin Sack (10 November 1998). "At Lunch With Margaret Edson; Colors, Numbers, Letters and John Donne". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F01E1DE113EF933A25752C1A96E958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all. Retrieved 2008-04-06.
- ^ Alex Kuczynski (13 April 1999). "Teacher Turned Playwright Is Among the Winners of 22 Pulitzer Prizes". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F00E3DC1F38F930A25757C0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all. Retrieved 2008-04-06.
- ^ McGrath, Charles (16 February 2012). "Changing Gears but Retaining Dramatic Effect". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/theater/margaret-edson-author-of-wit-loves-teaching.html?_r=4&pagewanted=all. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
External links
- Margaret Edson at the Internet Broadway Database
- Margaret Edson at the Internet Movie Database
- Margaret Edson at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
- Transcript from Edson's April 14, 1999 appearance on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
- New Georgia Encyclopedia
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Houghton Mifflin Chronology of US Literature
The Chronology of American Literature, edited by Daniel S. Burt. Copyright © 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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