Dove’s play debuts in Charlottesville

English professor Rita Dove’s play, "The Darker Face of the Earth," which premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 1996, will be staged at Piedmont Virginia Community College in November. Based on Sophocles’ Greek tragedy, "Oedipus Rex," the play is set on an antebellum plantation and tells the story of love and revenge in the shadow of slavery.

Terésa Dowell-Vest, a program director at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, directs the production.

A two-time U.S. Poet Laureate, Dove won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1987 and has published several books of poetry, a novel, a collection of short stories and a song cycle in collaboration with John Williams.

Nov. 7-9 and 14-16, 7:30 p.m.

Nov. 10 and 17, 2:30 p.m.

Dickinson Main Stage

Tickets: $10; students, $6, and seniors, $8. Available by calling 961-5376, or online at http://www.pvcc.vccs.
edu/artscenter/02-03/Earth.htm