David Edgar to Discuss Pentecost at Ars Nova

Playwright David Edgar, best known in this country for his eight-hour stage adaptation of Charles Dickens’ The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, will be interviewed by TheaterMania’s senior theater critic, David Finkle, at the Ars Nova theater on Sunday, February 20 at 12:30pm. Edgar will discuss his award winning play Pentecost, now receiving its New York premiere as the inaugural production at the Barrow’s Group’s new 99-seat theater, the Barrow Group Arts Center.

Seth Barrish, artistic director the Barrow Group and director of Pentecost, will also be on hand to talk about the challenges of presenting Edgar’s complex work, in which a fresco discovered during renovations on an Eastern European church threatens to rewrite the history of art and to disturb delicate political and social balances. The play won the 1995 London Evening Standard award and very possibly will figure prominently in New York theater awards ceremonies in the spring.

A playwright drawn to large-scale projects as well as to scorching political subject matter, Edgar examined American politics in his two-play cycle Continental Divide, which bowed last year at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival but has yet to make it to Manhattan. Among his other works are The Jail Diaries of Albie Sachs, May Day and The Shape of the Table.

The February 20 interview is the latest in TheaterMania’s continuing series of talks with theater professionals at Ars Nova. Tickets for the event are $10 in advance, $15 at the door; for more information or to purchase tickets, click here.