MONMOUTH – Monmouth Community Players will hold auditions for “Wit,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Margaret Edson, at 10 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 1, and at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 3, at Cumston Hall.

“Wit” is as intellectually challenging as it is emotionally immediate. At the start of the play, Vivian Bearing, Ph.D., a renowned professor of English who has spent years studying and teaching the brilliantly difficult Holy Sonnets of the metaphysical poet John Donne, has been diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer.

Her approach to her illness is not unlike her approach to the study of Donne: aggressively probing and intensely rational. But during the course of her illness – and her stint as a prize patient in an experimental chemotherapy program at a major teaching hospital – Vivian comes to reassess her life and her work with a profundity and humor that are transformative for her.

Other characters include Harvey Kelekian, M.D., 50ish, chief of medical oncology, University Hospital; Jason Posner, late 20s-early 30s, clinical fellow, Medical Oncology Branch; Susie Monahan, R.N., late 20s-early 30s, primary nurse, Cancer Inpatient Unit; E. M. Ashford, D.Phil., 70ish, professor emerita of English literature; and Mr. Bearing, Vivian’s father. Also: lab technicians, clinical fellows, students and code team members all played by an additional four actors.

Readings will be done from the script.

“Wit” will be directed by Lucy Rioux. Performance dates are Jan. 16-18 and 23-25.

For more information, call 582-5717 or 321-9729, or e-mail mattb2566@gmail.com.

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