What the Butler Saw by Joe Orton – Director Liz Bradley

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Audition Information: What the Butler Saw by Joe Orton – director Liz Bradley The Play: FARCE—the edge of acceptable Other plays include Entertaining Mr Sloane, Funeral Games, Loot, The Good and Faithful Servant and The Visitors. Orton’s masterpiece of farce is set in a psychiatrist’s office, in which sanity is hard to come by. Dr. Prentice, a doctor in an exclusive private clinic, is attempting to interview (and seduce) an attractive would-be secretary. Unwittingly surprised by his wife, he hides the girl. The affairs multiply as Mrs. Prentice, being seduced and blackmailed by a young bellhop, has promised him the secretarial post. When a government inspector arrives, chaos, underpants and crossdressing lead the charge. The final tableau reveals ‘the missing parts of Winston Churchill’ held aloft as the curtain falls. The play takes the conventions of the genre and blows them up. Orton’s take on farce is subversive — not merely fast-paced, but anarchic. “Hilarious, outrageous...It dazzles! Wonderfully verbal, toying with words as if they were firecrackers.” The New York Times Audition dates are 11 July from 10am – 4pm and 13 July from 5– 7pm at REP, 3 Repertory Lane Acton. First read through Saturday 18 July 4 – 6pm Rehearsals start Tuesday 28 July, being held Tuesdays and Thursdays 7pm -9pm, Sundays 4pm – 7pm.. The director would like you to be familiar with the script. Auditionees should prepare a short monologue and be prepared to read from the script. Scripts are available from Canberra REP Theatre – Tues-Fri 10am – 4pm except Public Holidays – for a $5 deposit, refundable on return of the script at audition. Bookings are through Canberra REP – [email protected] or 62571950 during office hours. Audition information below Characters: Playing ages are listed next to the characters, and are a little flexible. Dr Prentice male 40+ Geraldine Barclay female 20’s Mrs Prentice female 40 + Nicholas Beckett male 20’s, 30’s Dr Rance 50 + Sergeant Match male 20’s, 30’s .

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Joe Orton: the Oscar Wilde of the Welfare State
JOE ORTON: THE OSCAR WILDE OF THE WELFARE STATE by KAREN JANICE LEVINSON B.A. (Honours), University College, London, 1972 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Department of English) We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA April, 1977 (c) Karen Janice Levinson, 1977 ii In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by his representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of English The University of British Columbia 2075 Wesbrook Place Vancouver, Canada V6T 1W5 30 April 1977 ABSTRACT This thesis has a dual purpose: firstly, to create an awareness and appreciation of Joe Orton's plays; moreover to establish Orton as a focal point in modern English drama, as a playwright whose work greatly influenced and aided in the definition of a form of drama which came to be known as Black Comedy. Orton's flamboyant life, and the equally startling method of his death, distracted critical attention from his plays for a long time. In the last few years there has been a revival of interest in Orton; but most critics have only noted his linguistic ingenuity, his accurate ear for the humour inherent in the language of everyday life which led Ronald Bryden to dub him "the Oscar Wilde of Welfare State gentility." This thesis demonstrates Orton's treatment of social matters: he is concerned with the plight of the individual in society; he satirises various elements of modern life, particularly those institutions which wield authority (like the Church and the Police), and thus control men.
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John Bull University of Lincoln 'We Cannot All Be Masters, Nor All Masters/Cannot Truly Be Follow'd': Joe Orton's Holida
John Bull University of Lincoln ‘We cannot all be masters, nor all masters/Cannot truly be follow’d’: Joe Orton’s Holiday Camp Bacchae – matters of class, genre and medium in The Erpingham Camp. Joe Orton is thought of largely as a writer for the theatre, and yet three of his plays first appeared on television: as many as first appeared on stage. In what follows I want to consider just one of these, The Erpingham Camp (1967) and, by looking at the way in which it evolved both before and after its first outing on television, to offer to both reposition this play in the oeuvre and to re-open the debate about what Orton was moving towards theatrically.1 Before considering its development, it will be useful first to reflect on the public perception of the young dramatist at the time he started to work on it. From a distance of some fifty years, and in a very different social and cultural climate, it is extremely hard to fully comprehend the kind of impact that Joe Orton’s plays had when first produced: and, concomitantly, it is just about impossible to understand the degree of hostility that they aroused in many quarters, and yet it is important to do so in order to understand how Orton dealt practically with the implications of this hostility. Nor was it confined to sections of the paying public and to newspaper critics, as reaction to the work that caused the greatest furore at the time, Loot (1964), will demonstrate. Examination of the Lord Chamberlain’s archive reveals that there was considerable internal pressure to refuse to grant it a licence at all: a reader’s report by Kyle Fletcher (8 December 1964) argued that the play 1 Work on this article has been greatly aided by research in the following archives: ‘Joe Orton Collection’, University of Leicester; ‘’Lord Chancellor’s Papers’ and ‘Peter Gill Archive’, British Library; ‘Lyndsay Anderson Archive’, University of Stirling; the British Film Institute archive.
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If a Thing's Worth Doing, It's Worth Doing on Public Television–Joe Orton's
Middlesex University Research Repository An open access repository of Middlesex University research http://eprints.mdx.ac.uk Charlton, James Martin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9066-4705 (2014) If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing on public television – Joe Orton’s plays on television. In: Theatre and Television: Adaptation, Production, Performance, 19-20 Feb 2015, Alexandra Palace. [Conference or Workshop Item] Final accepted version (with author’s formatting) This version is available at: https://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/18929/ Copyright: Middlesex University Research Repository makes the University’s research available electronically. Copyright and moral rights to this work are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners unless otherwise stated. The work is supplied on the understanding that any use for commercial gain is strictly forbidden. A copy may be downloaded for personal, non-commercial, research or study without prior permission and without charge. Works, including theses and research projects, may not be reproduced in any format or medium, or extensive quotations taken from them, or their content changed in any way, without ﬁrst obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder(s). They may not be sold or exploited commercially in any format or medium without the prior written permission of the copyright holder(s). Full bibliographic details must be given when referring to, or quoting from full items including the author’s name, the title of the work, publication details where relevant (place, publisher, date), pag- ination, and for theses or dissertations the awarding institution, the degree type awarded, and the date of the award.
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Sheila Hancock and Jenna Russell to Star in The
SHEILA HANCOCK AND JENNA RUSSELL TO STAR IN THE EUROPEAN PREMIÈRE OF ACCLAIMED MUSICAL GREY GARDENS, WINNER OF 3 TONY AWARDS & NOMINATED FOR A FURTHER 7, ALONG WITH 12 DRAMA DESK AWARDS ON BROADWAY, FROM THE TEAM BEHIND TITANIC AND GRAND HOTEL Olivier Award-winning West End stars, Sheila Hancock and Jenna Russell, are to star in the eagerly awaited European première of Grey Gardens. Based on an iconic 1975 documentary, Grey Gardens, with Book by Doug Wright, Music by Scott Frankel, Lyrics by Michael Korie, tells the spectacular real life rise and fall of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s aunt and cousin, Edith and Edie Bouvier Beale. Starting in 1941 at an engagement party at Grey Gardens, the Bouvier’s mansion in East Hampton, Long Island, the musical tracks the progression of the two women’s lives from American aristocrats to reclusive social outcasts living in such squalid conditions, in a home overrun by cats, that the Health Department deemed the mansion ‘unfit for human habitation’. Grey Gardens, produced by Danielle Tarento and directed by Thom Southerland, the award-winning team behind Grand Hotel, Titanic, Parade and Mack & Mabel, will open for a 6-week season in The Large at Southwark Playhouse from Saturday 2 January, 2016. “The best argument I can think of for the survival of the American musical” Press night is Thursday 7 January at 7.30pm. Ben Brantley, New York Times More cast to be announced. Press contact: Kevin Wilson at KWPR Tel: 07884 368697 [email protected] 49 Western Lane London SW12 8JS T: 020 8673 0658 M: 07884 368697 E: [email protected] www.kevinwilsonpublicrelations.co.uk Sheila Hancock (Edith “Big Edie” Ewing Bouvier Beale) Sheila’s extensive career spans theatre, radio, television and film, LISTINGS INFO and she is also now enjoying a career as a features presenter and as a writer including The Two of Us which won the British Book Danielle Tarento Award for Author of the Year, and her debut novel Miss Carter’s presents the European Premiére of War.
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1 Sticky Stories: Joe Orton, Queer History, Queer Dramaturgy
Sticky Stories: Joe Orton, Queer History, Queer Dramaturgy. Stephen Farrier Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London. Joe Orton, commonly thought of as a playwright of risqué farces in the 1960s, was a very present figure for a while in the gay community in the UK in the late 1980s and early 1990s (perhaps because his biography was published late in the 1970s, his diaries in 1986 and a film based on the diaries released 1987). His presence in 1980s and 1990s gay culture was in part because he met a death worthy of column inches and, importantly, he stood as emblematic of a past homosexual who refused to curb his sexuality whilst living in a conservative social context. In England and Wales, homosexuality was not criminalised in the 1980s and 1990s as it had been in the 1950s and 1960s, but there were present homophobic social values and legislation (Section 28, unequal age of consent) that resonated with the context within which Orton was writing and his work was first being produced.1 Orton’s figure as a queer and a playwright stood as both inspiration and a lesson from the past, one that reminded queers and gays in the 1980s and 1990s that the fight for equality does not end with a change in the legal status of homosexuality, or indeed in the 2010s, with equal marriage. Yet in recent years Orton’s work has fallen out of favour and does not appear as often as it once did on the queer cultural landscape. There are many reasons for this, not least of all that the kind of work that Orton makes might not register as queer or even gay now.
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Reconsidering Orton and the Critics: * the Good and Faithful Servant
Connotations Vol. 21.1 (2011/2012) Reconsidering Orton and the Critics: * The Good and Faithful Servant YAEL ZARHY-LEVO Joe Orton’s play The Good and Faithful Servant was written in 1964 and first broadcast on UK television by Rediffusion in April 1967. Maurice Charney, discussing the play in his article in Connotations 18.1-3, presents it as an anomalous work within the context of Orton’s drama, contending that “[e]ven though it follows Entertaining Mr Sloane and precedes Loot, Orton makes none of his characteristic attempts to make the play farcical, and it lacks his usual violence and sexual energy” (139); and he continues: “Because it is so uncharacteristic of Orton, it is no surprise that it is his least produced and least discussed play” (148). Charney argues for the excellence of the play, “just be- cause it is so anomalous, so uncompromising, so absolute” (149). Charney’s article in Connotations elaborates upon the view he had presented in an earlier article on the play, included in the 2003 Case- book devoted to Orton’s work, in which he wrote: “It is the play of Orton’s that has attracted the least interest both in the theatre and in critical discussion. The fact is significant in itself because it is the play that seems least “Ortonesque,” as that term has been used to describe Orton’s characteristically witty, epigrammatic, grotesquely lurid, and highly sexual style” (Charney, “Orton’s Bitter Farce” 21). Charney considered that this powerful play, which contains painful autobio- graphical details (albeit successfully disguised), “has been more or *Reference: Maurice Charney, “Joe Orton’s Laodicean Tragedy: The Good and Faithful Servant,” Connotations 18.1-3 (2008/2009): 139-50.
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I Give Permission for Public Access to My Thesis and for Any Copying to Be Done at the Discretion of the Archives Librarian And/Or the College Librarian
I give permission for public access to my thesis and for any copying to be done at the discretion of the archives librarian and/or the College librarian. Date: A Very British Bacchanalia: Classical Themes in the Works of Joe Orton Danielle J. Sanfilippo Presented to the Department of English in partial fulfillment for the degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors Mount Holyoke College South Hadley, MA May 1, 2009 2. Acknowledgments First, I would like to thank my advisor, John Lemly, for providing constant support, weekly meetings, and helpful conversations. He bravely agreed to be my advisor when others in the English Department proclaimed themselves unequal to the task of advising on Orton. He has been a great help to me in this endeavor. Thank you so much, Professor Lemly. I would like to thank the other members of my committee, William Quillian and Paula Debnar. First of all, thank you for agreeing to be part of my committee. You attended my Senior Symposium presentation, (at nearly 5 o’clock on a Friday) and you asked terrific questions. Your presence was greatly appreciated. Thank you. A huge thank you to my parents for always supporting me. Mom, thank you for being such a great proofreader and editor, and for always being there when I need a hug and a shoulder to cry on. Papa, thank you for always being interested in my work and for your great conversations and hugs. I love you both. Thank you so much. Finally, thank you, Allison, for providing me with love and support.
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Worth Doing on Public Television [Final]
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Middlesex University Research Repository 1 ‘If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing on public television – Joe Orton’s plays on television’ Conference paper by James Martin Charlton, Theatre and Television: Adaptation, Production, Performance Westminster University at Alexandra Palace, 19-20 February 2015 Paper presented 20 February. “Anything that is worth doing is worth doing in public” is a line of dialogue from Joe Orton’s 1967 screenplay for the Beatles, Up Against It. Had it been made, Up Against It may well have been the most public of Orton’s works, reaching an international audience of millions. But it was never to be made and the largest public audience that Orton reached was via British television. Five of his plays being broadcast on ITV between 1966 and 1973, followed much later by a BBC production of his final stage play What the Butler Saw in 1987. Were Orton’s plays worth doing on public television? The trajectory of his chronology shows Orton’s ongoing attempts to do what he was doing “in public” - in increasingly public media. Unpublished novels; pseudonymous letters to the press; defaced library books left for the public to discover; radio broadcast; stage production; television production. Orton chronology 1933 – John Kingsley Orton born on 1 January in Leicester, eldest child of William and Elsie Kingsley Orton. 1944 – John Orton fails 11+ 1945-47 Attends Clark’s College, a private commercial school 1949 – Joins Leicester amateur dramatics groups 1950 – Takes elocution lessons with one Madame Rothery 1951 – Studies at RADA; in June, John moves in with a fellow student, Kenneth Halliwell (8 years John’s senior) 1953 – Begins writing an (unpublished and now lost) novel with Halliwell, The Silver Bucket.
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Joe Orton: a High Comedy of Bad Manners Joel Greenberg
Spring 2001 133 Joe Orton: A High Comedy of Bad Manners Joel Greenberg Joe Orton, dubbed 'the Oscar Wilde of Welfare State Gentility' by critic Ronald Bryden, established a new kind of theatre with just three full-length plays and less than a half dozen one-act and radio plays. That so modest a body of work altered the possibilities of stage comedy is remarkable, but that the playwright spent only three years of his life, the last three years (1964-67), in his pursuit of and mastery over a unique voice is nothing short of extraordinary. Orton was an exemplary student, whose education came not from formal training but from his inexhaustible appetite for reading, listening to radio drama, attending theatre and eavesdropping on life on the street and in the gutter. No stranger to the works of the great Restoration playwrights or Oscar Wilde, Orton eschewed the new naturalism of writers like Osborne and Wesker, preferring the indirection and obfuscation of a comedy whose ultimate aim must be to resist the predictable in order to lacerate the audience's complacency. Between 1964, with his premiere production, Entertaining Mr. Shane, and 1967, when he completed the rehearsal draft of What the Butler Saw, Orton struck chords of outrage and delirious glee as he perfected his unique brand of high comedy which would, in his lifetime, come to be known as 'Ortonesque.' High Comedy begins with the playwrights of the British Restoration. What is most striking about Restoration comedy is its passionate reliance on language over action, a predilection of British theatre writing that served as Orton's chief inspiration.
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Entertaining Mr Sloane Free
FREE ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE PDF Joe Orton,John Lahr | 112 pages | 23 Aug 2001 | Bloomsbury Publishing PLC | 9780413413406 | English | London, United Kingdom Entertaining Mr Sloane (film) - Wikipedia As IMDb celebrates its 30th birthday, we have six shows to get you ready for those pivotal years of your life Get some streaming picks. Title: Entertaining Mr. Sloane 15 Jul Sloane is a murderer. But, as both his middle-aged landlady and her homosexual brother quickly notice, he's very handsome. Entertaining Mr Sloane for something to watch? Choose an adventure below and discover your next favorite movie or TV show. Visit our What to Watch page. Sign In. Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Full Cast and Crew. Release Dates. Official Sites. Company Credits. Technical Specs. Plot Summary. Plot Keywords. Parents Guide. Entertaining Mr Sloane Sites. User Reviews. User Ratings. External Reviews. Metacritic Reviews. Photo Gallery. Trailers and Videos. Crazy Credits. Alternate Versions. ITV Playhouse —. Rate This. Entertaining Mr. Season 1 Episode All Episodes Director: Peter Moffatt. Writers: Joe Orton adaptationJoe Orton play. Added to Watchlist. Share this Rating Title: Entertaining Mr. Sloane 15 Jul 6. Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Photos Add Image Add an image Do you have any images for this title? Edit Cast Episode credited cast: Clive Francis Sloane Sheila Hancock Kaff Arthur Lovegrove Kemp Edward Woodward Edit Storyline Mr. Edit Did You Know? Trivia Joe Orton was murdered just days before he was meant to join in the rehearsals for this play.
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Aurora Theatre Company Presents Joe Orton's Comic
PRESS RELEASE MEDIA CONTACT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Dayna Kalakau 510.843.4042 x311 [email protected] AURORA THEATRE COMPANY PRESENTS JOE ORTON’S COMIC MASTERPIECE LOOT APRIL 3 - MAY 3 (OPENS: APRIL 9) Featuring Newly Uncovered Dialogue Previously Censored From Orton's Original Script BERKELEY, CA (February 25, 2020) Aurora Theatre Company continues its dynamic 28th season with Joe Orton’s LOOT. Former Aurora Artistic Director Tom Ross (Everything is Illuminated, This Is How It Goes, A Delicate Balance) directs this comedic tour de force. The cast features Warren David Keith (Widowers’ Houses, The First Grade, The Devil’s Disciple), Dean Linnard, Susan Lynskey, Nick Mandracchia, Josh Matthews, Patrick Russell (A Bright New Boise, Wilder Times, Body Awareness), and Danny Scheie (Mystery of Irma Vep, The Monster-Builder). LOOT runs April 3 - May 3 (Opens: April 9). Hailed as a darkly comic masterpiece, LOOT follows the fortunes of two young thieves in swinging ‘60s London. Dennis works for an undertaker and Hal’s old Mum has just died. Having robbed a bank, the lads need a place to stash the loot and Mum’s coffin seems like the perfect place – but where to stash poor Mum? Playing roughhouse with the conventions of popular farce, Orton creates a world gone mad, hilariously examining hypocritical mores still percolating in our current time. The Huffington Post called LOOT a “comic time bomb going off exactly on schedule and obliterating all in its radius with outlandish entertainment.” “I'm so pleased to welcome my predecessor and good friend Tom Ross back to Aurora to direct Joe Orton's LOOT,” said Artistic Director Josh Costello.
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By Joe Orton a Playgoer’S Guide
A Few Comments... "It's Oscar Wilde crossed with Monty Python." – USA Today "the most genuinely quick-witted, pungent and sprightly entertainment by a new, young British playwright for a decade" – Sunday Telegraph “Loot is a glittering, beautifully written force of bad manners and furious slights against the superstition of death and organized religion.” – Michael Coveney, The Daily Mail by Joe Orton a playgoer’s guide A Plot Summary This guide was researched by the Loot Task Force: A black farce masterpiece, Loot follows the fortunes of two young Meghan MacCallum, Michael MacKinnon, thieves, Hal and Dennis. Dennis is a hearse driver for an undertaker. Jodi Paget and Patricia McFadgen They have robbed the bank next door to the funeral parlor and have returned to Hal's home to hide-out with the loot. Hal's mother has just and assembled and edited by the died and the pair put the money in her coffin, hiding the body in the Loot Editing Team: closet. With the arrival of Inspector Truscott, the plot thickens. Playing Leanda McQuaid, Meaghan Balzer, with all the conventions of popular farce, Orton creates a world gone Erin Legare and Kristina Gilders mad as characters contradict assumptions about their roles: Fay, the nurse, has a track record of killing, rather than healing; Inspector St. Thomas University English 2223: Truscott beats up London citizens; Hal, a good Catholic son who can’t From the Page to the Stage tell a lie, is a crook; and Dennis, Hal’s partner in crime and bed, is visit our Web site at: engaged to Fay.
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