Casting Announced For Sarah Daniels' MASTERPIECES

In a production commissioned by the Finborough Theatre, the long-overdue rediscovery of the seminal feminist play by Sarah Daniels, Masterpieces opens at the Finborough Theatre for a four-week limited season on Tuesday, 24 April 2018 (Press Nights: Thursday, 26 April and Friday, 27 April 2018 at 7.30pm).

Masterpieces opens on three couples - Rowena and Trevor, their friends Yvonne and Ron, and Rowena's mother Jennifer and stepfather Clive - having dinner in a restaurant. They exchange sexist jokes to a variety of responses: some laugh uproariously, some uncomfortably, and one is deeply unhappy. Masterpieces is the story of Rowena, and her journey from seeing a pornographic magazine for the first time, to a thwarted attempt to help an unhappy prostitute, from uncomfortable laughter, to radical and disgusted protest at female subjugation.

A passionate indictment of pornography, the objectification of women and those who condone violence against them.

Masterpieces was originally produced in 1983 at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, before transferring to The Royal Court Theatre where it won Sarah Daniels the London Theatre Critics Award for Most Promising Playwright. Extracts from the play were also performed at the National Theatre in a one-off platform performance in 1999 as one of their '100 Most Significant Plays of the 20th Century'.

Playwright Sarah Daniels is an acclaimed writer whose work has been performed all over the world. She has worked extensively as a playwright having work produced at The Royal Court Theatre, National Theatre, Clean Break Theatre Company, Crucible Theatre, Sheffield and Palace Theatre, Watford among others. Her plays include Ripen Our Darkness, The Devil's Gateway, Byrthrite and Beside Herself (Royal Court Theatre) and Best Mates and Dust (National Theatre). In addition to her work for the stage and radi,o she has written extensively for television including EastEnders, Holby City and Grange Hill (which she wrote for twenty years).

Director Melissa Dunne returns to the Finborough Theatre where she directed Just to Get Married, named in The Observer's 'Best Theatre Of 2017' list. She is Artistic Director of Papercut Theatre and has directed work in venues as diverse as Theatre503, Arcola Theatre, the Houses of Parliament and the Royal Festival Hall. Direction includes I'm Not Jesus Christ (Theatre N16, supported by the Romanian Cultural Institute), I Still Get Excited When I See A Ladybird (Theatre503), Extraction (Etcetera Theatre) and The Space Between My Head and My Body (Theatre503 and Edinburgh Festival). She founded and continues to creatively manage the acclaimed XY playwriting festival which has been produced at Hackney Showroom, Latitude Festival, Pleasance Edinburgh and Theatre503. She has read scripts for the literary departments of the National Theatre, Bush Theatre, the Verity Bargate Award and Soho Theatre. She is also a Visiting Lecturer at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

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