J. M. Barrie's DEAR BRUTUS Comes to Southwark Playhouse for Christmas season
By: BWW News Desk Sep. 07, 2017
1917. In a remote English village there are rumours of an enchanted wood. One of the inhabitants - a mysterious old man - invites eight strangers to stay. They all have something in common. When, one evening, the wood miraculously appears the guests feel compelled to enter. What happens there has the power to change their lives forever...
From J. M. Barrie, the celebrated writer of Peter Pan, The Admirable Crichton and Quality Street, comes this haunting drama of self-revelation. Darkly comic, and presented in a sumptuous production for the play's centenary year, Dear Brutus is Barrie at his most magical.
Directed by Jonathan O'Boyle (Sense of an Ending - Time Out Critics' Choice) and produced by Troupe, who return to Southwark Playhouse after their critically acclaimed production of The Cardinal (The Telegraph Critics' Choice).
Performances
DEAR BRUTUS
Wednesday 29 November - Saturday 30 December 2017
Tuesday and Saturday matinees at 3.30pm
See website for full schedule
Box Office
Online
Playwright J. M. Barrie was born in Kirriemuir, Scotland in 1860. He is best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan, the boy who refused to grow up. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh and moved to London in 1885 where he began to write novels and plays. Barrie's marriage in 1894 to the actress Mary Ansell was childless and later ended in divorce, apparently unconsummated. In 1897 he met Sylvia Llewellyn Davies and her sons, who he often entertained with fairy stories in Kensington Gardens while they strolled with their nanny. It was to them that he told his first Peter Pan stories, some of which were published in The Little White Bird (1902). When Sylvia died in 1907 Barrie assumed guardianship of the Llewellyn Davies boys. He supported them to adulthood but, tragically, George died in combat in 1915 during World War I and Michael drowned in 1921 while swimming. The play Peter Pan; or, The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up was first produced in December 1904 at the Duke of York's Theatre. It triumphed, transferred to Broadway the following year, and has received frequent revivals and adaptations in a variety of media ever since. Many of Barrie's other great plays have been eclipsed by its huge success - Quality Street (1901), The Admirable Crichton (1902), What Every Woman Knows (1908), and Dear Brutus (1917) - are of indisputably high quality and remain ripe for revival. Barrie was created a baronet in 1913 and was awarded the Order of Merit in 1922. He became president of the Society of Authors in 1928 and chancellor of the University of Edinburgh in 1930. He died in London in 1937.
Director Jonathan O'Boyle's work includes Pippin (Hope Mill Theatre, Manchester), Hair (Hope Mill Theatre, Manchester and The Vaults Theatre), Four Play for which he was nominated for an Off West End Award for Best Director, Sense of an Ending and Water Under the Board (Theatre503), The Surplus and All the Ways to Say Goodbye (The Young Vic), The Verb, To Love and Made in Britain (Old Red Lion Theatre), Bash: Latterday Plays (Old Red Lion Theatre and Trafalgar Studios) and King Lear and Broken Glass (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama). Work as Associate Director includes This House (Chichester Festival Theatre and Garrick Theatre), The Judas Kiss (Brooklyn Academy Of Music, New York and Ed Mirvish Theatre, Toronto), Mack and Mabel and Amadeus (Chichester Festival Theatre), Bull (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, The Young Vic and 59E59 Theaters, New York), This is My Family (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield and National Tour), The Scottsboro Boys (The Young Vic), My Fair Lady and The Village Bike (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield) and Manon (Royal Opera House, Covent Garden). He is currently Resident Director for An American in Paris at the Dominion Theatre. He was previously Trainee Associate Director at Chichester Festival Theatre and Associate Director at Theatre503.
Designer Anna Reid trained at Wimbledon College of Art. Work includes Dust (Underbelly Edinburgh), The Cardinal and School Play (Southwark Playhouse), I'm Gonna Pray For You So Hard (Finborough Theatre), Jumpers for Goalposts (Oldham Coliseum Theatre), Epic Love and Pop Songs (Pleasance Edinburgh and Pleasance London), Empty Beds (Underbelly Edinburgh and Arcola Theatre), Fury and Brute (Soho Theatre), For Those Who Cry When They Hear The Foxes Scream (Tristan Bates Theatre),Tape (Drayton Arms Theatre), Dottir (Courtyard Theatre), Dry Land (Jermyn Street Theatre), Bruises (Tabard Theatre), Arthur's World (Bush Theatre), Hippolytos (Victoria and Albert Museum), Fierce (Camden People's Theatre) and Hamlet (Riverside Studios).
Lighting Designer Peter Harrison trained at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Work includes The Cardinal (Southwark Playhouse), Julius Caesar (Guildford Shakespeare Company), Child of the Divide (National Tour), Pink Mist (Bristol Old Vic and Bush Theatre), Britten in Brooklyn (Wilton's Music Hall), Flowering Cherry (Finborough Theatre), The White Carnation (Finborough Theatre and Jermyn Street Theatre), Alfie White: Space Explorer and Wilde Creatures (Tall Stories), Bucket List, The Ballad of the Burning Star and Translunar Paradise (Theatre Ad Infinitum), The Paper Cinema's Macbeth (Pleasance Edinburgh), Run (VAULT Festival), Marsha: A Girl Who Does Bad Things (Arcola Theatre), Much Ado About Nothing (Ludlow Festival), Jerry's Girls (St. James Theatre), Orestes (Shared Experience), The Doubtful Guest (Hoipolloi at Theatre Royal Plymouth and Palace Theatre, Watford), Once We Were Mothers (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond) and numerous pantomimes for First Family and Evolution Productions. Opera includes Paul Bunyan (Welsh National Youth Opera) and Orpheus in the Underworld (Royal College of Music). Dance includes In-Nocentes and Home Turf (Sadler's Wells), Lazarussuchus (Gärtnerplatztheater, Munich) and productions for Central School of Ballet, Urdang Academy and London Studio Centre. Associate Lighting Design includes As You Like It and Collaborators (National Theatre), Made in Dagenham (Adelphi Theatre), I Can't Sing! (London Palladium) and The Commitments (Palace Theatre).
Sound Designer Max Perryment trained at City, University of London. Work includes Start Swimming (The Young Vic and Summerhall Edinburgh), Replay and Goodbear (Pleasance Edinburgh), Dust (Underbelly Edinburgh), Hair (Hope Mill Theatre, Manchester and The Vaults Theatre), Landmines (The BRIT School, Ovalhouse and Otherplace, Brighton), Nest (Brighton Fringe and National Tour), Muted (The Bunker), Blood and Water (Kestrel Theatre Company at HMP Springhill and Royal Court Theatre), The Frontline (Arts Educational Schools London), R and D (Hampstead Theatre), Last of the Boys (Southwark Playhouse), Reimagining Uncle Vanya (Almeida Theatre), Four Play, Clickbait and Sense of an Ending (Theatre503), Romeo and Juliet (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond), And Then Come the Nightjars (Theatre503, Bristol Old Vic and National Tour), Creditors, The Remarkable Case of K, The Surplus and Basecamp (The Young Vic), The Three Lions (St. James Theatre and National Tour), Black Dog Gold Fish (The Vaults Theatre), Attempts on Her Life (LAMDA),Twist of Gold (Polka Theatre) and Champagne Breakfast (Arts Depot).
Max writes music for commercials and is the composer for theatre company Parrot in the Tank and contemporary dance company Made By Katie Green.
Producer Troupe returns to Southwark Playhouse after its critically acclaimed production of James Shirley's The Cardinal, which was supported by the inaugural MGCfutures Bursary Award. Troupe's previous rediscoveries at the Finborough Theatre - Rodney Ackland's After October, Robert Bolt's Flowering Cherry and R. C. Sherriff's The White Carnation, which later transferred to Jermyn Street Theatre - have been nominated for a total of five Off West End Awards.
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