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Max Stafford-Clark
Maxwell Robert Guthrie Stewart "Max" Stafford-Clark (born 17 March 1941) is a British theatre director. Life and career Stafford-Clark was born in Cambridge, England. the son of David Stafford-Clark, a physician, and Dorothy Crossley (née Oldfield). He was educated at Felsted School, in Essex, England and Riverdale Country School in New York City, followed by Trinity College, Dublin. His directing career began as Associate Director of the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in 1966. He became artistic director there from 1968 to 1970. He was Director of the Traverse Theatre Workshop Company from 1970 to 1974. Stafford-Clark then co-founded the Joint Stock Theatre Company in 1974. Joint Stock worked with writers using company research to inspire workshops. From these workshops, writers such as David Hare, Howard Brenton and Caryl Churchill would garner material to inspire a writing phase before rehearsals began. This methodology is sometimes referred to as The Joint Stock Method. Pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge became an important trading centre during the Roman and Viking ages, and there is archaeological evidence of settlement in the area as early as the Bronze Age. The first town charters were granted in the 12th century, although modern city status was not officially conferred until 1951. The city is most famous as the home of the University of Cambridge, which was founded in 1209 and consistently ranks among the best universities in the world. The buildings of the university include King's College Chapel, Cavendish Laboratory, and the Cambridge University Library, one of the largest legal deposit libraries in the world. The city's skyline is dominated by several college buildings, along with the spire of the Our Lady and the English Marty ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jim Cartwright
Jim Cartwright (born 27 June 1958) is an English dramatist, born in Farnworth, Lancashire. Cartwright's first play, ''Road'', won a number of awards before being adapted for TV and broadcast by the BBC. His work has been translated into more than 40 languages. Plays by Jim Cartwright * 1986 ''Road'' - Royal Court Theatre, London. Winner of: George Devine Award; Plays and Players Award; Drama Magazine Award; Samuel Beckett Award. directed by Simon Curtis. * 1988 ''Bed'' - National Theatre. directed by Julia Bardsley * 1989 ''Two'' - Octagon. Young Vic Theatre. Winner of: Manchester Evening News Theatre Award for Best New Play. directed by Andy Hay * 1990 ''Baths'' - Octagon. directed by Andy Hay * 1991 ''Eight Miles High'' - Octagon * 1994 & 1995 Bristol Theatre Royal Nominated for Theatre Management Association Best Musical Award. directed by Andy Hay * 1992 '' The Rise and Fall of Little Voice'' - Winner of: Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy of the Year; Laurence Oli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sonia Friedman
Sonia Anne Primrose Friedman (born Freedman; born April 1965) is a British West End and Broadway theatre producer. On 27 January 2017, Friedman was named Producer of the Year for the third year running at The Stage Awards, becoming the first person to win the award three times. In 2018, Friedman was featured in "TIME100", ''Time Magazine'' 's 100 Most Influential People of 2018 and was named Broadway Briefing's Show Person of the Year. In 2019, Sonia Friedman Productions was ranked ''The Stage'' 's most influential theatre producer in ''The Stage 100''. Early life Friedman is the youngest daughter of Clair Llewelyn (née Sims), a concert pianist, and violinist Leonard Freedman (who later changed his name to Friedman), who was leader of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Thomas Beecham and co-founder of many national institutions including the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Scottish Baroque Ensemble. Her father is from a Russian-Jewish immigrant family, whereas her m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Out Of Joint Theatre Company
Out of Joint is a British and international touring theatre company based in London. It specialises in the commissioning and production of new writing, interspersed with occasional revivals and classic productions. It was founded in 1993 by director Max Stafford-Clark and producer Sonia Friedman. Stafford-Clark left the company in 2017 and its current Artistic Director is Kate Wasserberg, who joined the company in April 2017. Graham Cowley succeeded Friedman as producer in 1998. Upon his retirement in 2012 he was succeeded as producer by Panda Cox, who originally joined the company as Stafford-Clark's assistant. The company's current Executive Producer is Martin Derbyshire. The company has premiered plays by established writers such as David Edgar, Sebastian Barry, Richard Bean, Caryl Churchill, April De Angelis, David Hare, Rebecca Lenkiewicz, Mark Ravenhill and Timberlake Wertenbaker, as well as work from first-time writers such as Stella Feehily and Mark Ravenhill. C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Recruiting Officer
''The Recruiting Officer'' is a 1706 play by the Irish writer George Farquhar, which follows the social and sexual exploits of two British Army#Ranks and insignia, officers, the womanising Plume and the cowardly Brazen, in the town of Shrewsbury (the town where Farquhar himself was posted in this capacity) to recruit soldiers. The characters of the play are generally Stock character, stock, in keeping with the genre of Restoration comedy. Characters Plot The play opens with the recruiter, Captain Plume's Sergeant Kite, recruiting in the town of Shrewsbury. Plume arrives, in love with Sylvia, closely followed by Worthy, a local gentleman who is in love with Sylvia's cousin Melinda. Worthy asked Melinda to become his mistress a year previously, as he believed her to be of inadequate fortune to marry. But he changes his mind after she comes into an inheritance of £20,000. Melinda accepts an invitation from Captain Brazen, another recruiter, to annoy Worthy, as she was offend ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Farquhar
George Farquhar (1677The explanation for the dual birth year appears in Louis A. Strauss, ed., A Discourse Upon Comedy, The Recruiting Officer, and The Beaux’ Stratagem by George Farquhar' (Boston: D.C. Heath & Co., 1914), p. v. Strauss notes that "Our sole source of information as to the time of his birth is the entry of his matriculation in the register of Trinity College" on 17 July 1694, where "His age is given as 17." Earlier biographers took this to mean Farquhar was in his 17th year—hence born in 1678—and Strauss favors this date. But later writers, such as William Myers, ed., George Farquhar: The Recruiting Officer and Other Plays'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. vii, give the dual year, and John Ross, ed., ''George Farquhar: The Recruiting Officer (New Mermaids),'' 2nd ed., (London: A&C Black, 1991), p. xiii, gives a birthdate of "''ca.'' 1677" for the playwright. – 29 April 1707) was an Irish dramatist. He is noted for his contributions to late R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Keneally
Thomas Michael Keneally, Officer of the Order of Australia, AO (born 7 October 1935) is an Australian novelist, playwright, essayist, and actor. He is best known for his non-fiction novel ''Schindler's Ark'', the story of Oskar Schindler's rescue of Jews during the Holocaust, which won the Booker Prize in 1982. The book would later be adapted into Steven Spielberg's 1993 film ''Schindler's List'', which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Early life Both Keneally's parents (Edmund Thomas Keneally and Elsie Margaret Coyle) were born to Irish Australians, Irish fathers in the timber and dairy town of Kempsey, New South Wales, and, though born in Sydney, his early years were also spent in Kempsey. His father, Edmund Thomas Keneally, flew for the Royal Australian Air Force in World War II, then returned to work in a small business in Sydney. By 1942, the family had moved to 7 Loftus Crescent, Homebush, New South Wales, Homebush, a suburb in the Inner West, inner west of Sydney ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Top Girls
''Top Girls'' is a 1982 play by Caryl Churchill. It centres around Marlene, a career-driven woman who is heavily invested in women's success in business. The play examines the roles available to women in old society, and what it means or takes for a woman to succeed. It also dwells heavily on the cost of ambition and the influence of Thatcherite politics on feminism. ''Top Girls'' has been included on a variety of "greatest plays" lists by critics and publications. Productions The play was premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London on 28 August 1982. It was directed by Max Stafford-Clark, the Royal Court's artistic director, who premiered several of Churchill's plays. The cast was Selina Cadell, Lindsay Duncan, Deborah Findlay, Carole Hayman, Lesley Manville, Gwen Taylor and Lou Wakefield. A production ran at the Watford Palace Theatre November 2–18, 2006 before transferring to the Greenwich Theatre November 21–25, 2006. The cast included Rachel Sanders, Zoe Aldrich, Elai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ron Hutchinson (screenwriter)
Ron Hutchinson (born 8 November 1946) is a Northern Irish screenwriter, playwright, and author. He is a four-time Primetime Emmy Award nominee, winning once for writing the screenplay for the television film '' Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story'' (1989). Career Among his other productions were '' Slave of Dreams'' (directed by Robert M. Young), the play ''Moonlight and Magnolias'', and the 2004 miniseries ''Traffic''. He has written extensively for theatre. In 2004, Hutchinson wrote ''Moonlight and Magnolias''. The play at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, Illinois was nominated for the 2004 Joseph Jefferson Award for New Work. ''The Irish Play'' was performed in a Royal Shakespeare Company production at the Royal Shakespeare Company Warehouse Theatre in London, England with Ron Cook, Brenda Fricker, and P.G. Stephens in the cast. Barry Kyle was director. Writing in '' Variety'' in 2005, David Rooney found the Manhattan Theatre Club's production of ''Moonlight ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Road (play)
''Road'' is the first play written by Jim Cartwright, and was first produced in 1986 at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, directed by Simon Curtis. The play explores the lives of the people in a deprived, working class area of Lancashire during the government of Margaret Thatcher, a time of high unemployment in the north of England. Despite its explicit nature, it was considered extremely effective in portraying the desperation of people's lives at this time, as well as containing a great deal of humour. Set on a road on a busy night, the audience delve into the houses on the street and the characters' lives. The play is often performed on a promenade, allowing the audience to follow the narrator (Scullery) along the road and visit different sets and the different homes of the characters. The play has won a number of awards and was voted the 36th best play of the 20th century in a poll by the Royal National Theatre. Notable productions * After the initial performance at t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Timberlake Wertenbaker
Timberlake Wertenbaker is a British-based playwright, screenplay writer, and translator who has written plays for the Royal Court, the Royal Shakespeare Company and others. She has been described in ''The Washington Post'' as "the doyenne of political theatre of the 1980s and 1990s". Wertenbaker's best-known work is '' Our Country's Good'', which received six Tony nominations for its 1991 production. She has a propensity to write about political thinking and conflict, especially where there is a settled orthodoxy: "Then the rebel in me goes berserk, and I start pawing at it. I like the area where the questions are, and the ambiguities of political life, rather than the certainties." Background Wertenbaker was born in New York City to Charles Wertenbaker, a journalist, and Lael Wertenbaker, a writer. Much of her childhood was spent in the Basque Country in the small French fishing village of Ciboure. She has been described as possessing a "characteristic reticence"; she ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Our Country's Good
''Our Country's Good'' is a 1988 play written by British playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker, adapted from the Thomas Keneally novel ''The Playmaker''. The story concerns a group of Royal Marines and convicts in a penal colony in New South Wales, in the 1780s, who put on a production of ''The Recruiting Officer''. It was first staged at the Royal Court Theatre, London, on 10 September 1988, directed by Max Stafford-Clark. It ran on Broadway in 1991. Background In the 1780s, convicts and Royal Marines were sent to Australia as part of the first penal colony there. The play shows the class system in the convict camp and discusses themes such as sexuality, punishment, the Georgian judicial system, and the idea that it is possible for "theatre to be a humanising force". As part of their research, Stafford-Clark and Wertenbaker went to see a play performed by convicts at Wormwood Scrubs, which proved inspiring: "in prison conditions, theatre can be hugely heartening and influen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
