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The Importance of Being Earnest “A Trivial Comedy for Serious People” by Oscar Wilde Directed by Rich Keitel March 7 – March 16, 2014 2

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The Importance of Being Earnest “A Trivial Comedy for Serious People” by Oscar Wilde Directed by Rich Keitel March 7 – March 16, 2014 2 The Importance of Being Earnest “A trivial comedy for serious people” by Oscar Wilde Directed by Rich Keitel March 7 – March 16, 2014 2 The Heinz Endowment Funded in part by: Massey Charitable Trust 3 For Teachers & Students POST-SHOW CHAT SESSIONS Stay after the school matinees to ask questions of both the actors and the production crew! During the 15-minute post-show chat sessions, delve into the story and then ask questions of the actors about the rehearsal process, theatre performance, and their experiences working on that particular production. No registration required. THE LITERACY IN ACTION PROGRAM Prime Stage Theatre’s flagship education program strives to increase adolescent literacy through theatre in underserved and underperforming school districts in the Western Pennsylvania area. In this FREE program, schools receive tickets and books for each Prime Stage production, 10 in-school workshops, and professional development opportunities for teachers. If you would like your school to become involved, please download an application at our website, http://www.primestage.com/files/pdf/literacy_in_action_application.pdf TEEN DATING AWARENESS PROGRAM Prime Stage Theatre is proud to offer a touring production of You Belong to Me, a 45 minute play designed to identify the warning signs of teen dating violence that can help save the life of a friend, loved one or even you. Written and performed by Pittsburgh area teens, this show will make an impact at your school or community center. If you would like our Teen Dating Awareness Program to come to your school or community center, please visit our website, http://www.primestage.com/education/teen_dating_awareness.html OTHER OPPORTUNITIES FOR TEENS, FAMILIES AND ADULTS Prime Stage Theatre offers opportunities for people of all ages to get involved with the theater. Check out our website to learn about the Teen Board, Mentorships, Volunteering, Book Readings and many other exciting events. There is something for everyone at Prime Stage! http://primestage.com/ 4 The Importance of Being Earnest Resource Guide Welcome to Prime Stage Theatre: Volume 5, Issue 2 Bringing Literature to Life! 2.18 .2014 Did you know… Welcome to Prime Stage Theatre’s 2013-2014 season! We had a very successful season last *Prime Stage is ceLebrating its th year with acclaimed productions of Fahrenheit 16 birthDay. 451, The Great Gatsby and Walk Two Moons. *Prime Stage has brought over This year, we are pleased to bring you the 60 stories to life! thriller ghost story of Turn of the Screw, one of the best comedies ever written, The Importance *In 2006, Prime Stage Fahrenheit 451, PST 2012-2013 of Being Earnest, and the world premiere weLcomeD Mary BaDham, the adaptation of Jane Yolen’s Newbery Award actress who pLayeD Scout in the winning novel about the Holocaust, The Devil’s fiLm To Kill a Mockingbird. Arithmetic. This Resource Guide is designed to provide historical background and context, classroom activities and curricular content to help you Check out what’s inside! enliven your students’ experience with the The Great Gatsby, PST 2012-2013 literature. We hope it will inspire you to use The Importance of Being Earnest in 3 minutes…or 5 theatrical games and creative thinking in your less classroom in order to spark personal connections with the theme and characters in Oscar Wilde, Bio 6 - 7 the stories. The Characters 8 If you have any questions about the information or activities in this guide, please contact me. I’m Putting it in Context 9 - 15 happy to help and welcome your suggestions! The First Stage Production 16 Monica Stephenson Walk Two Moons, PST 2012-2013 Monica Stephenson Education DirectorEducation Director Themes 17 [email protected]@primestage.com Motifs & Symbols 18 What is What? 19 Curriculum Connections Corner Class Activities 20 - 23 Arts anD Humanities: 9.1-9.4 Prime Stage is committed to Putting it in Stage 24 - 26 directly correlating our ReaDing, Writing, Speaking, programs to the PDE & Listening: 1.1-1.9 Attending the 27 Academic Standards. The History: 8.1, 8.3 Performance Importance of Being Earnest and this Resource Guide may Additional Resources 28 be used to address the following curriculum content PST & PA Core Standards! 29 standards: 5 The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People In 3 minutes or less… largely for his professed name of Ernest. consent only if Lady Bracknell agrees to his own union with Gwendolen— The Importance of Being Earnest Jack accordingly resolves to himself to takes place in London and the be rechristened "Ernest". Discovering something she declines to do. countryside in 1895, the last few them in this intimate exchange, Lady The impasse is broken by the return of years of the period that would be Bracknell interviews Jack as a Miss Prism, whom Lady Bracknell termed Victorian England. The prospective suitor. Horrified to learn recognizes as the person who, twenty- English aristocracy flourished that he was adopted after being eight years earlier, as a family during this time. It is this group on discovered as a baby in a handbag at nursemaid, had taken a baby boy for a which Wilde’s satire focuses. walk in a perambulator (baby carriage) Victoria Station, she refuses him and In a July 1894 letter, Oscar Wilde forbids further contact with her and never returned. Challenged, Miss Prism explains that she had abstractedly expresses his opinion about the daughter. Gwendolen, though, manages put the manuscript of a novel she was plot in The Importance of Being covertly to promise to him her undying Earnest. “The real charm of the writing in the perambulator, and the love. As Jack gives her his address in the play, if it is to have charm, must be country, Algernon surreptitiously notes baby in a handbag, which she had left at in the dialogue. The plot is slight, it on the cuff of his sleeve: Jack's Victoria Station. Jack produces the very but, I think, adequate… Well, I revelation of his pretty and wealthy same handbag, showing that he is the think an amusing thing with lots young ward has motivated his friend to lost baby, the elder son of Lady of fun and wit might be made.” meet her. Bracknell's late sister, and thus indeed Algernon's elder brother. Having Act 2, The GarDen of the Manor House, acquired such respectable relations, he WooLton Cecily is studying with her Act 1, Algernon Moncrieff's flat in HaLf is acceptable as a suitor for Gwendolen governess, Miss Prism. Algernon arrives, Moon Street, The play opens with after all. Algernon Moncrieff, an idle young pretending to be Ernest Worthing, and Gwendolen, though, still insists that she gentleman, receiving his best friend, soon charms Cecily. Long fascinated by can only love a man named Ernest. Lady John Worthing, whom he knows as Uncle Jack's hitherto absent black sheep Bracknell informs Jack that, as the first- Ernest. Ernest has come from the brother, she is predisposed to fall for born, he would have been named after country to propose to Algernon's cousin, Algernon in his role of Ernest (a name his father, General Moncrieff. Jack Gwendolen Fairfax. Algernon, however, she, like Gwendolen, is apparently examines the army lists and discovers refuses his consent until Ernest explains particularly fond of). Therefore that his father's name—and hence his why his cigarette case bears the Algernon, too, plans for the rector, Dr. own real name—was, in fact, Ernest. inscription, "From little Cecily, with her Chasuble, to rechristen him "Ernest.” Pretence was reality all along. As the fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack." Jack, meanwhile, has decided to happy couples embrace—Jack and 'Ernest' is forced to admit to living a abandon his double life. He arrives in Gwendolen, Algernon and Cecily, and double life. In the country, he assumes a full mourning and announces his even Dr. Chasuble and Miss Prism— serious attitude for the benefit of his brother's death in Paris of a severe chill, Lady Bracknell complains to her young ward, the heiress Cecily Cardew, a story undermined by Algernon's newfound relative: "My nephew, you and goes by the name of John (or, as a presence in the guise of Ernest. seem to be displaying signs of triviality." nickname, Jack), while pretending that Gwendolen now enters, having run "On the contrary, Aunt Augusta", he he must worry about a wastrel younger away from home. During the temporary replies, "I've now realized for the first brother named Ernest in London. In the absence of the two men, she meets time in my life the vital Importance of city, meanwhile, he assumes the Cecily, each woman indignantly being Earnest." identity of the libertine Ernest. Algernon declaring that she is the one engaged to confesses a similar deception: he "Ernest.” When Jack and Algernon pretends to have an invalid friend reappear, their deceptions are exposed. named Bunbury in the country, whom Act 3, Morning-Room at the Manor he can "visit" whenever he wishes to House, WooLton Arriving in pursuit of avoid an unwelcome social obligation. her daughter, Lady Bracknell is Jack refuses to tell Algernon the location astonished to be told that Algernon and of his country estate. Cecily are engaged. The revelation of Gwendolen and her formidable mother Cecily's trust fund soon dispels Lady Lady Bracknell now call on Algernon. As Bracknell's initial doubts over the young he distracts Lady Bracknell in another lady's suitability, but any engagement is room, Jack proposes to Gwendolen. She forbidden by her guardian Jack: he will accepts, but seems to love him very 6 Oscar Wilde, Playwright "All that I desire to point out is the general principle that life imitates art far more than art imitates life." - Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills competitive examination in his Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 second, and then, in his finals, won November 1900) was an Irish the Berkeley Gold Medal, the writer and poet.
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