the work of 'Big Night' playwright
The work of playwright and novelist Dawn Powell, whose once out-of-print stories, novels and plays have been reissued because of renewed interest, will be explored in a symposium on Saturday,
The symposium is offered in conjunction with the Yale Rep's production of Powell's "Big Night," the first full staging of the play in nearly 70 years and the premiere of Powell's original 1928 version.
The symposium will take place 4:30-6 p.m. in the lecture hall of the Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St. Admission is free, and the public is invited.
Once dubbed "lady wit," Powell wrote more than 100 stories, 10 plays and 15 novels, including "The Locusts Have No King," "A Time to be Born," "Angels on Toast" and "The Wicked Pavilion." She fled her home in Ohio in 1918 for New York City with the goal of becoming a writer. In the city, she met or affiliated with many of the literary icons of the Jazz Age, including Ernest Hemingway, E.E. Cummings, Samuel Beckett and Jean-Paul Sartre, whom Powell called "the Hopalong Cassidy of France." Despite the endorsement of her famous friends, Powell never enjoyed financial success, and by the time of her death in 1965, all of her books were out of print. Recent interest in her work been has stirred by a devoted readership that includes Gore Vidal and playwright John Guare, resulting in the reprinting of 13 of Powell's novels, four of her plays, and her diaries and collections of letters.
Participants in the symposium include Powell's biographer and Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Tim Page; William Peterson, a former professor at Powell's alma mater, Lake Erie College, who knew the playwright and served as dramaturg for the recent revival of her play "Jig Saw" at New York City's Peccadillo Theater; and Gerald Howard, a publisher at Doubleday Broadway and a Powell fan, who will address the revitalization of Powell's work. Catherine Sheehy, resident dramaturg at the Yale Rep and the production dramaturg for "Big Night," will moderate.
Symposium guests will have the opportunity to see the 2 p.m. or 8 p.m. Saturday performance of "Big Night," Powell's domestic tragicomedy about an advertising salesman whose antics while trying to woo a big account lead to domestic conflict. Ticket prices range from $20 to $36, with discounts for students, senior citizens and groups. To purchase tickets, call the Yale Rep box office at (203) 432-1234 or order online at www.yalerep.org.
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