UAA professor to discuss Henry David Thoreau following staged reading of 'The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail' - Jan. 25, 2012

Wednesday, Jan. 25, 7 p.m.
Cyrano's Off-Center Playhouse (413 D St.)

Professor Toby Widdicombe of the UAA English Department, an authority on American literature and the literature of Utopianism, will be part of a panel of experts who will discuss the ideas of the American philosopher, essayist, poet and naturalist Henry David Thoreau at Cyrano's Off-Center Playhouse in downtown Anchorage on Wednesday evening, Jan. 25.

The discussion will follow a staged reading of the play "The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail," written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, authors of "Inherit the Wind," "First Monday in October" and other plays.

"The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail" has been widely produced, starting in 1970 during the height of protests against the Vietnam War and the Cambodian incursion. The two-act play centers on the most famous act of civil disobedience in American history, the refusal by a 29-year-old Thoreau to pay his taxes because he opposed the American war against Mexico in the mid-1840s. Read more background on the play here.

Besides Widdicombe, those who will discuss the play, the man at its center, his ideas and their meaning for us today include Bruce Farnsworth, a local poet, arts impresario and the founder and manager of the former Mobile Trailer Supply art gallery in Mountain View, and Bob Pond, longtime Anchorage theatre professional and the director of "The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail." The discussion and audience Q&A will be moderated by Peter Porco, producer of the reading, who's an adjunct instructor of creative writing in UAA's English Dept.

Admission is free. Contributions of any amount are welcome.

For more information, contact Peter Porco at (907) 248-6662, (907) 306-9659 or picoalaska@gmail.com.