Tea & Talk With Eastern Shore Playwright, Mary Wood, March 1

Chestertown, MD, February 22, 2005 — The spring 2005 season of Washington College's Rose O'Neill Tea & Talk Series continues Tuesday, March 1, with a talk by local playwright, Mary Wood, discussing her new work in progress, “Hunting Rights,” a play dramatizing the conflict between the pressure of development and environmental and historic preservation in an Eastern Shore community. The talk is free and open to the public and all are welcomed to enjoy tea, conviviality, and discussion in the comfortable surroundings of the O'Neill Literary House. Tea served at 4 p.m., talk begins at 4:30.

The Church Hill Theatre will also hold a free staged reading of “Hunting Rights” on Sunday, March 6, at 2 p.m.

Wood is a 1968 graduate and former Trustee of Washington College. Her love of poetry began in her childhood, but with the help of courses with Professor Robert Day through the College's creative writing program, she honed her craft as a poet and playwright with a particular focus of the culture, history, and environment of the Eastern Shore. Wood has published two books,The Balanced Moment: Selected Verse 1970-1995 (Literary House Press, 1997), and My Darling Alice: Based on Letters and Legends of an Eastern Shore Farm.

The Rose O'Neill Tea & Talk Series showcases the research, writing, and talent of Washington College's faculty, staff, and alumni, and is held in the College's O'Neill Literary House. Established in 1985, the Literary House was acquired and refurbished through a generous gift of alumna Betty Casey, Class of 1947, and her late husband Eugene, and named in memory of his late mother, Rose O'Neill Casey. Now in its 20th anniversary year, the O'Neill Literary House reflects the eclectic spirit of Washington College's creative writing and academic culture.