Theatrical Performance of Woolf's A Writer's Diary

The play, After Tea, is a collage of diary entries based on Woolf’s writings from 1919 until 1941. Adapted from Leonard Woolf’s A Writer’s Diary, the play traces Woolf’s inner thoughts, the progress of her fame and disappointment, her worries about her writing and her health. Performed by two actresses, Emily Paton Davies as Virginia Woolf at age 38 and Joan Staniunas as Woolf at age 58, the play is a conversation between the youthful genius writing her masterpieces in the 1920s and the darker and more fragile Virginia of the last years. The younger Virginia saw the worth of such a dialogue, writing often of an imagined older self: “The lady of 50 will be able to say how near to the truth I come.”

The play has been adapted and will be directed by Carol Samson, a faculty member at the University of Denver in the Writing Program. The actresses who will perform the play have won acting awards and are prominent members of the Denver theatre community.

Because Virginia Woolf often wrote in her diary “after tea,” we invite you for tea and scones as part of our theatre evening. Tea will be served in the Newman Center from 6-6:45 p.m. and the theatre production will take place in the Hamilton Theatre at the Newman Center at 7 p.m.