At Acting Ensemble on the Avenue
602 E. Mishawaka Avenue in Mishawaka
September 2, 2025 StageWorks Staged Reading of:
“WIT” by Margaret Edson.
Directed by Judy Spigle, and performed by Ginny Cipolla, Eric Haanstad, Jamie Lake, Thos Lankston, Douglas Streich, Ken Tartar and Leigh Taylor.
The Story: In her extraordinary first play, Margaret Edson has created a work that is as intellectually challenging as it is emotionally immediate.
The action of the play takes place during the final hours of Dr. Vivian Bearing, a university professor of English, dying of ovarian cancer. Vivian has spent years studying and teaching the brilliant and difficult metaphysical sonnets of John Donne. She has lived her life alone, is unmarried and without children, her parents are deceased, and she has no emergency contact.
Over the course of the play, Vivian reflects on her life through the intricacies of the English language, especially the use of wit in the metaphysical poetry of John Donne. She comes to reassess her life and her work with a profundity and humor that are transformative both for her and the audience.
Winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Winner of the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play.
“[A] brutally human and beautifully layered new play…you feel both enlightened and, in a strange way, enormously comforted.” —The New York Times.
“A dazzling and humane new play that you will remember till your dying day.” —New York Magazine.
