President of the Thomas Hardy Association to Speak at Burning Coal's JUDE THE OBSCURE, 4/14

Burning Coal today announced that Rosemarie Morgan, current President of the Thomas Hardy Society and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, will speak on "The Critical Response to the Publication of Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy" on Saturday, April 14, 2012 at 6 pm at the Murphey School, 224 Polk Street, Raleigh.  Tickets are $5 at the door or free for anyone holding a ticket to any performance of Jude the Obscure, Parts 1 & 2.  Further information is available by calling 919.834.4001 or visiting www.burningcoal.org.

Rosemarie Morgan is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews. She taught at  Yale University from 1985-2000, is President of The Thomas Hardy Association, Vice President of The Thomas Hardy Society, author of Women and Sexuality in the Novels of Thomas Hardy (1988), Cancelled Words: Rediscovering Thomas Hardy (1999), Student Companion to Thomas Hardy (2006), Ed., Far From the Madding Crowd (2000) and editor of the biannual Hardy Review. Her most recent publication is The Ashgate Research Companion to Thomas Hardy(ed., 2010). She has also published on Toni Morrison, Charlotte Brontë, American Women Frontier Writers and is Year's Work essayist for Victorian Poetry.

Playwright Ian Finley, composers Bruce Benedict and Jonathan Fitts and Lyricist Jerome Davis will speak on the creation of a two part musical adaptation of Thomas Hardy's great novel on Friday, April 20^th immediately following the performance of Jude the Obscure, Part 2 that evening (approximately 10 pm) at the Murphey School, 224 Polk Street, Raleigh, NC.  Tickets are free for anyone holding a ticket to any performance of Jude the Obscure.  Further information can be obtained by calling 919.834.4001 or visiting us at www.burningcoal.org.