When Sandra Gray was asked to play the lead in “Wit” for Lawrence Community Theatre, she hesitated.

She had played scholar-turned-cancer patient Vivian Bearing a year ago in a Topeka production, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to crawl back into the character’s skin.

“It’s scary because she’s an academic and a single woman,” said Gray, an anthropology instructor at Kansas University. “It’s a raw look at the certain kinds of decisions she made, as she confronts her death. I was not sure I wanted to be in that world again.”

The Pulitzer Prize-winning play, directed by Penny Weiner, revolves around Bearing, a renowned scholar and English professor, whose special area of study is the 17th-century metaphysical poet John Donne. Her studies have been aggressively rational and probing  until she is diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer.

Bearing becomes part of an experimental chemotherapy program at a teaching hospital and begins reassessing her life.

“She achieves a state of grace,” Gray said, describing her character’s transformation during the course of the play. “There’s something that sets you apart when you have something like (cancer). Something forces you to a state of grace and that’s how you survive.”

Gray, who worked as a professional actress for 15 years before getting her anthropology degree, said she was initially drawn to the play because of its clever language and use of Donne’s poetry. A sonnet referred to in the play poses a question: How much difference is there between life and death?

“Maybe split seconds,” Gray explained. “We need to recognize death as a part of life. The act of dying is just a comma (between what happens before and what happens after). We need to move past the comma.”

Gray will shave her head for the Lawrence production, just as she did for the Topeka show. She will look like a woman undergoing cancer treatment, and she will most likely be treated like one  some people will avoid her; others who have experienced cancer will want to offer their support.

“As an anthropology professor, I find it interesting. The character is so naked, literally and figuratively, that (a shaven head) seems like such a trivial thing to me,” she said. “But people automatically assume I have cancer. Â People in America are afraid of aging and illness, so if it reminds them of their own mortality they will ignore you.”

Because the play addresses death and dying, two talkback sessions have been arranged by the Lawrence Caring Community Council and its chairman Emily Taylor, former dean of women at KU. A March 3 session will feature Shari Kretzchmer, an oncology nurse; Nadereh Nasseri, patient care coordinator at Hospice Care of Douglas County; Gene Meyer, president and chief executive officer of Lawrence Memorial Hospital; and Ann Gardner, moderator.

A March 11 session will feature Dr. Patty Tenofsky, a surgeon; Dr. Richard Sosinski, a hospice physician; Bonnie Peterson, senior vice president/chief operating officer of Lawrence Memorial Hospital; and Dr. Phillip Godwin, moderator.

In addition, a photography exhibit titled “Hats for a Woman in Need of a Hat” will be shown throughout the play’s run in the theater’s Gladys Six Green Room. The exhibit is a series of photographs of Laura Dalrymple, an art teacher at Allen County Community College in Iola, wearing hats designed and constructed by her students after she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

The photographs were taken by Dalrymple’s longtime partner, James Harris. The hats range in style from romantic to whimsical.