 Eugene O’Neill and the Women in His Life
Beth Wynstra, a scholar and professor at Babson College in Boston will present a lecture and overview on the women in playwright Eugene O’Neill’s life this fall.
Eugene O’Neill and the Women in His Life includes a lecture and reading of Always Gene, a one-act play, written by Wynstra.
Always Gene depicts a meeting among five women pivotal in Eugene O'Neill's life. They compare notes, joke and argue with, and about one another, as they reflect upon and defend their roles in their relationships with the playwright.
Featured readers are Vera Kelly, Cathy McDonagh, Mary Bonnett, Aileen O’Grady and Leslie Singel, who are all Chicago actors or Irish studies scholars.
Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953) was one of the most acclaimed playwrights of the 20th century. A four-time Pulitzer Prize winner, he is the only American dramatist to date to win the Nobel Prize for literature. Three of his Pulitzers prizes came in the 1920s: Beyond the Horizon (1920), Anna Christie (1922) and Strange Interlude (1928); his fourth was awarded posthumously in 1957, for his harrowing autobiographical masterpiece Long Day's Journey into Night.
Wynstra holds a Ph.D. in Theater Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara. She has taught courses on rhetorical theory, public speaking, modern drama, American theater and community-based theater and acting. Her original one-act play Always, Gene was produced at the 2002 and 2009 Eugene O’Neill Festival in Danville, California. She serves on the board of the Eugene O’Neill International Society.
Eugene O’Neill and the Women in His Life is Sunday, September 26, 2010 from 2-pm-4pm. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at the door.
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