Václav Havel's Newly Discovered Play 'WARNING' to Premiere at 92NY

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F. Murray Abraham and Adam Gopnik will present the newly uncovered fourth chapter of Havel's Ferdinand Vaněk cycle at 92NY's Unterberg Poetry Center.

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The 92nd Street Y , New York will present the first public reading of Warning, a newly discovered play by Václav Havel, on Saturday, September 26 at 7:30 p.m. at the 92NY Unterberg Poetry Center.

F. Murray Abraham and writer Adam Gopnik will take part in the staged reading, which will be followed by a conversation about the work and its discovery.

Warning expands Havel's series of one-act plays featuring Ferdinand Vaněk, an alter ego drawn from the playwright's experiences as a dissident in communist Czechoslovakia. Havel's works were banned in Czechoslovakia, and his activism included co-authoring Charter 77 and serving as one of its first three spokespeople. He was repeatedly detained and imprisoned for his dissident activities.

The unfinished manuscript of Warning was found decades later among notes Havel had written following police interrogations and intended for his friend Zdeněk Urbánek. After Havel's death in 2011, Urbánek's grandson, David Dušek, discovered the manuscript while going through his grandfather's papers.

Czech playwright and director Jiří Havelka subsequently completed the work, with Havel's longtime translator Paul Wilson translating it into English.

The reading comes nearly 50 years after the play was originally drafted. Havel later became a leading figure in the 1989 Velvet Revolution and was elected president of Czechoslovakia that December. Following the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, he became the first president of the Czech Republic in 1993.

Warning will be presented Saturday, September 26 at 7:30 p.m. at The 92nd Street Y , New York. Both in-person and streaming tickets will be available.

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_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/off-broadway/article/F-Murray-Abraham-and-Adam-Gopnik-to-Lead-World-Premiere-Reading-of-Vclav-Havels-WARNING-at-92NY-20260917)._