Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Margaret Edson will make a rare public appearance to discuss her play Wit with PBS's Jim Lehrer ("The Newshour") Feb. 5 at the Alley Theatre in Houston. The subject of the talk will be "The Role of Wit In Culture And Society."

Edson, a kindergarten teacher in Atlanta, Georgia, wrote Wit as her first play. Based in her experiences in the cancer inpatient unit of a research hospital, Wit follows the deterioration of English literature professor Dr. Vivian Bearing, an expert on John Donne's metaphysical poetry, who is brought low by ovarian cancer. The drama, mixed with a surprising amount of comic wit, won the New York Drama Critics Circle, Drama Desk, Drama League, Outer Critics Circle, Lucille Lortel and the (Newsday) Oppenheim awards.

Joining the playwright and Lehrer will be Rabbi Emeritus Samuel Karff of Congregation Beth Israel and Ellen Cohen, the president of the Houston Area Women's Center.

Tickets are free, but reservations must be made by calling the Alley Theatre box office at (713) 228-8421. The Alley Theatre is located at 615 Texas Avenue and on the web at http://www.alleytheatre.org.

-- By Christine Ehren