Jean Shepherd’s A Christmas Story adapted by Philip Grecian is a memoir of growing up in the mid 40’s. It follows a 9 year old Ralphie Parker and his quest to get a “Genuine Red Rider BB Gun” under the tree at Christmas.
Play type: Drama / Comedy
Audience Target: Family
Run Time: 2 Hours
In this brilliant and powerful drama, School Principal Sister Aloysius takes matters into her own hands when she suspects young Father Flynn of improper relations with one of his male students.
Winner of the 2005 Tony Award for Best Drama, and a Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Play type: Drama
Audience Target: Age 14+
Run Time: 1 Hour 30 Minutes
Anna Patterson, the matriarch of a brood of famous and longing to be famous creative artists, has gathered the family to her summer house during the Williamstown Theatre Festival. But restless egos and remaining jealousies derail the weekend.
Type: Comedy Drama
Audience Target: Age 12+, Mild adult themes
Run Time: 2 Hours, 20 Minutes
The year is 1913 and war with Germany is imminent Rudyard Kipling is at the peak of his literary fame. Due to very week eyesight, Kipling’s son Jack is unable to enlist in the army or navy. Using his influence, Kipling is able to find Jack a commission in the British Guards. A bitter family conflict is sparked when Jack is reported missing in action.
Type: Drama
Audience Target: Any
Run Time: 2 Hours, 20 Minutes
Clarissa, the second wife of Henry Hailsham Brown, is adept at spinning tales of adventure for their bored diplomatic circle. When a murder takes place in her drawing room she finds the drama much harder to cope with, especially as she suspects the murderer might be her young stepdaughter Pippa. Worse still, the victim is the man who broke up Henry’s first marriage! Clarissa’s fast talking places her in some hair raising experiences, as she comes to learn that the facts are much more terrifying than fiction…
“Suspense, anyone? The old fashioned kind? Who’s for good, clean fun? One is Agatha Christle’s 1954 puzzler, The Spider’s Web.” – Howard Thompson, The New York Times
Our season closes with To Kill a Mockingbird, a dramatization of Harper Lee’s 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honour and injustice in the Deep South and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred. One of the best-loved novels of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, and served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture.
It’s 1935, and racial tensions are high in Maycomb, Alabama. Nonetheless, young Jean Louise Finch – or Scout, as she is fondly called – manages to live a rather carefree, priviliged existence, insulated from issues of race. All that changes when Scout watches her father, Atticus Finch, defend an innocent man, Tom Robinson, against a potential death sentence, which looms threateningly against him because of racial prejudice. Scout learns that “growing up” often means doing what is right, even when it comes at great cost. To Kill A Mockingbird is now considered an American masterpiece.
A moving, comical and eye-opening story of four young women fighting for education and self-determination against the larger backdrop of women’s suffrage. Cambridge 1896, and Girton College, home to the country’s first female students, is an object of annoyance and derision to the rest of the university. The year’s intake of new women face economic difficult, the distractions of men, radical politics, and the jaw-dropping prejudice that blights every aspect of academy life. Meanwhile, there looms the prospect of a controversial vote to decide: should these ‘blue stockings’ be allowed to graduate? While skilfully invoking its Victorian setting, the play’s themes of gender equality and the power of education are just as important today.
“Cracking… leaves you astonished at the prejudices these educational pioneers had to overcome.” ~ Michael Billington, Guardian
“Touching and entertaining… Swale tells the story with both wit and a hint of righteous indignation.” ~ Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph
The third play of the season is Emlyn Williams’ Someone Waiting, first seen in London and on Broadway in 1955. Martin’s best friend Paul has been wrongfully hanged for murdering a woman in his adoptive father’s flat. When Martin fails his law exam, Fenn, a private tutor, arrives and soon confides to Martin that he is Paul’s father who has come to administer justice himself to whoever it was who really did the killing. Before this evening is over, you will find that you have been misled several times. Playwright, novelist and actor Emlyn Williams understood theatre intimately and knew what worked for audiences. When he died in 1987, he had written or co-written 20 screenplays in addition to his 20 plays. Someone Waiting will keep you on the edge of your seat as the plot twists and twists again.
“… a drama of murder and revenge which stretches suspense from the first moment of the first act to the final line… If you can guess beforehand what will happen at play’s end you are smarter than I am… As an addict of the psychological thriller, I had a fine time.” ~ New York News
