Wednesday, March 19, 2003

WILMINGTON, NC -- David Sedaris, best-selling author and satirist, will speak at 8 p.m., Friday, April 11, in UNCW’s Kenan Auditorium. This talk is the seventh in the university’s eight-part Arts in Action Performing Arts Series.



Sedaris made his comic debut on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition. In his readings from his SantaLand Diaries, Sedaris recounted his strange-but-true experiences as a Macy’s elf clad in green tights. Sedaris’ ironic humor and incisive social critiques have made him one of NPR’s most popular and humorous commentators.

Sedaris is the author of Me Talk Pretty One Day, Barrel Fever, Naked and Holidays on Ice, a collection of Christmas-related stories. Sedaris and his sister, Amy, have collaborated under the name The Talent Family. They wrote several plays that were produced at La Mama and the Lincoln Center including Stump the Host, Stitches, Incident at Cobbler’s Knob, The Book of Liz and One Woman Shoe, which won an Obie Award.

Sedaris, who grew up in North Carolina, taught writing at the Art Institute of Chicago for two years. His essays appear regularly in The New Yorker, and he was named by Time magazine as the Humorist of the Year for 2001. He received the Thurber Prize for American Humor in September 2001. Sedaris resides in Paris.

Tickets are $18; $12 for UNCW faculty/staff and seniors; and $6 for UNCW students and children 12 and under. Contact the Kenan Auditorium Box Office at 910/962-3500 or 800-732-3643. Box office hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday. A book signing will follow the talk; copies of Sedaris’ books will be available for purchase.

For more information, contact Shannon Hooker at 910/962-7600 or visit the Web site www.uncw.edu/stuaff/arts.