Edna Ferber Fest

Coming up with the lede to this story about festival honoring the work of Edna Ferber was easy because I fell into this category:

While Edna Ferber may not be a household name, plays and movies based on he works certainly are. The author, who died in 1968 at age 82, penned the novel “Show Boat,” which was adapted into the well-known musical by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein. Her take on the Texas oil business, “Giant,” became the 1956 film starring James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson.

And the list of Ferber’s successes goes on: She won a Pulitzer Prize for her 1924 novel “So Big”; “Dinner at Eight,” her 1932 collaboration with playwright George S. Kaufman, was nominated for multiple Tony Awards when it was revived on Broadway in 2003; two other works – “Cimarron,” published in 1929, and “Ice Palace,” published in 1958 – were also silver screen successes.

“She was ahead of her time,” said Julie Gilbert, Ferber’s grand-niece, biographer and estate executor. “She was huge and most people don’t know anything about her.”

That may change after “Five by Ferber,” May 31 to June 3 at West End Arts Center, a collaborative effort between Gilbert and New Jersey Repertory Company.