The surgeon who attended President Lincoln in his last hours was a 23-year-old Union Army medic who slunk away after calling the death, despondent that he had failed Mary Todd Lincoln’s charge to “keep my husband alive.”

Dr. Charles Augustus Leale’s first-person account of Lincoln’s last hours, written in 1867 for the “Congressional Record,” was only made public in 2009.

Now, Hershey Felder offers the world premiere of “An American Story For Actor And Orchestra” – a one-man show about Dr. Leale and his efforts to save Lincoln’s life – through Feb. 3 at Birch North Park Theater.

Can a wide-eyed seeker of truth and knowledge preserve her passion for learning despite the efforts of a beaten-down purveyor of public education who fears that British college classes are more likely to stultify than inspire?

That’s the question at hand in Willy Russell’s “Educating Rita,” playing through Feb. 3 at North Coast Repertory Theatre and directed by Rosina Reynolds.

“Argo” has been voted Best Film of 2012 by the San Diego Film Critics Society. SDGLN Critic Jean Lowerison is a member of the group.

The film dramatizes the events surrounding the rescue of American civil service staff following the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Iran.

Ben Affleck, who also stars in the film, won the society’s Best Director award, while Chris Terrio won Best Adapted Screenplay and William Goldenberg won Best Editing for their efforts on the film as well.

Some novels don’t translate well to the stage. Jon Jory’s new adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Persuasion,” now in its world premiere at OnStage Playhouse, may be one of them.

Austen, born to English gentry, was a keen observer of the social mores of the late 18th-century and women’s place in that society. “Persuasion” follows the lives of the widowed Sir Walter Elliot (Larry E. Fox) and his daughters Elizabeth (Jennie Olson Six), Anne (Kym Pappas) and Mary Elliot Musgrove (Holly Stephenson).