Glenn Close to present award to Tom Stoppard at next month’s PEN gala

NEW YORK, N.Y. – Glenn Close will help honour playwright Tom Stoppard at next month’s PEN Literary Awards Gala, the PEN American Center announced Thursday.

Close, who starred in the 1984 Broadway production of Stoppard’s “The Real Thing,” will present him with the PEN/Allen Foundation Literary Service Award, given by the literary and human rights organization for artistic achievement and defence of creative expression.

The PEN centre also announced that Charlie Hebdo Editor- in-Chief Gerard Biard, who took over the Parisian satirical publication after the deadly shootings in January, will attend the May 5 ceremony. Charlie Hebdo is receiving the PEN/Toni and James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award.