Westport Country Playhouse will present a Sunday Symposium on “The Importance of Oscar Wilde,” on Sunday, November 2, following the 3 p.m. performance of Oscar Wilde’s comedy classic, “The Importance of Being Earnest,” a sparkling satire gleefully skewers love, marriage, and high society. Sunday Symposium guest will be John Waters, New York University professor. Moderator will be Mark Shanahan, Westport Country Playhouse artistic director. The discussion will be followed by an interactive dialogue with the audience. The Playhouse Sunday Symposium program is free and open to the public.

“As we open our wonderful production of ‘The Importance of Being Earnest,’ I’m excited to invite John Waters to speak with our audience about the legacy of Oscar Wilde and the ways in which his masterwork speaks to us today,” said Shanahan. 

John Waters taught at Wake Forest University, the University of Notre Dame, and Louisiana State University before taking up a joint appointment in the English Department and the Irish Studies Program based at Glucksman Ireland House, New York University, where he was the founding director of the interdisciplinary MA in Irish and Irish-American studies.  He currently teaches courses in Irish writing from the 17th century to the present, with a special emphasis on Irish modernism, Joyce, and Beckett, contemporary poetry, and Irish drama, as well as courses on exile and migration for the NYU College Core Program.

“The Importance of Being Earnest” runs from October 28 through November 15. Melissa Rain Anderson directs a cast of eight: Kristen Hahn as Cecily Cardew, Anthony Michael Martinez as Algernon Moncrieff, Jan Neuberger as Miss Prism, Christine Pedi as Lady Bracknell, Michael Raver as Jack Worthing, J.P., Triney Sandoval as Rev. Canon Chasuble, D.D., Mark Silence as Merriman, Lane, and

Katy Tang as Gwendolyn Fairfax.Westport Country Playhouse Presents Sunday Symposium on “The Importance of Oscar Wilde”