Pulitzer-Prize Winning Playwright Rita Dove to Keynote MLK Celebration at Georgia Perimeter College, 1/15

Rita Dove, a, playwright and former United States Poet Laureate, will be the keynote speaker for Georgia Perimeter College's 14th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Celebration to be held on Friday, Jan. 15, 2010, beginning at 7 p.m. at Beulah Missionary Baptist Church, 2340 Clifton Springs Road, Decatur.

Dove also will participate in a morning interview conducted by Valerie Jackson, host of National Public Radio's "Between the Lines," and widow of former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson. The 10 a.m. program will be held at GPC's Clarkston Campus Cole Auditorium, and it will be simulcast to other GPC campuses.

Dove served as Poet Laureate of the United States and Consultant to the Library of Congress from 1993 to 1995, and as Poet Laureate of The Commonwealth of Virginia from 2004 to 2006. She has received numerous accolades for her poetry, including the coveted Commonwealth Award of Distinguished Service in 2006, the Library of Virginia's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008, the Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal and the Premio Capri in 2009. Currently, Dove is Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. (A more complete biography and listing of her publications can be found at www.gpc.edu/mlk.)

Ms. Dove's play, DARKER THAN THE FACE OF THE EARTH will be presented this summer as part of the Essential Theatre Play Festival at King Plow Arts Center in Atlanta. The Georgia premiere of this stunning tragic drama will be directed by Betty Hart. The classic story of Oedipus is re-imagined on a slave plantation in the American South. The play will be presented as part of the ESSENTIAL THEATRE PLAY FESTIVAL, a repertory of three new plays running in rotation. In addition to DARKER FACE OF THE EARTH, the festival will feature the world premiere of Georgia playwright Gabriel Dean's QUALITIES OF STARLIGHT and the regional premiere of Peter Hardy's SALLY AND GLEN AT THE PALACE. For more information about the play festival visit www.EssentialTheatre.com

Georgia Perimeter College, the third largest institution of the University System of Georgia, serves more than 24,500 students through four campuses and several sites in metro Atlanta. For additional information, visit www.gpc.edu/mlk. Contact: Beverly James, Assistant Director, Media Relations, Phone: 678-891-2686; Fax: 678-891-2966; email: Beverly.James@gpc.edu

The mission of the Essential Theatre is to nurture and produce exciting and challenging new work by Georgia playwrights and expand the theatre experience of our audiences by presenting world and regional premieres previously not seen in the Atlanta area.

 

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