SHAKESPEARE HIS WIFE AND THE DOG JAN 18–28 / THE EDYE Photo credit: Issy Whitchurch Issy credit: Photo Theatre at The Broad Stage made possible in part by generous gifts from Laurie & Bill Benenson and Susan Stockel. There will be no intermission. 14 CAST Not much else is known about Will Shakespeare. He left no letters or Anne ..................................Sally Edwards correspondence. No diary. We never hear Will ............................. Philip Whitchurch his thoughts or opinions. We don’t really know what he looked like, or where he laid LOCATION his head all those years away from home. New Place, Stratford-upon–Avon The only whisper from the man is in the April 1616 will he made shortly before he died, but even this is a voice devoid of emotion, Written by ................... Philip Whitchurch dressed up in the legalese of his lawyer, Directed by .........................Julia St John Francis Collins. Movement .......................... Shona Morris So what was he really like? Who was this Designed by ......................... Aline Jeffrey person who over 400 years ago wrote so Photographs .........................Paul Grundy profoundly and perceptively about the Costumes ............................. Hilary Lewis astounding breadth and complexity of the Film/trailer ......................Patrick Baldwin human condition? Academics for years Music .................................. Simon Slater have pondered this question. A whole Accent Coach .................Charmian Hoare industry has been constructed to wrestle with the possibilities of his life yet the man Special thanks to remains deliciously elusive. Who did he Lesley Nicol really love? Was he unfaithful, was he gay? Aly Spiro (ALRA) Why did he leave home for London? How Gail McIntyre did he become an actor... a writer? How Simon Slater could he write these brilliant plays without Michael Powell Jones a university education? Did he like a pint? St Michael and all Angels Church Chiswick Was he kind to animals? .... and on and on. PROGRAM NOTES “Shakespeare his wife and the dog” “And as imagination…” imagines a tiny moment in Shakespeare’s life, a miniature portrait painted the night Over 400 years ago a boy is born in a before he died. An alternative title to the small provincial town in England, into a play might have been “Shakespeare’s last family of modest means. He is baptized night,” except this in not just about Will, in the local church. He goes to the local this is about his relationship with the most grammar school, and gets married at important person in his life – his wife, the age of 18 to a woman eight years Anne. his senior. He moves to London and in a short span of time becomes the greatest Many people have imagined their playwright of all time. He stays married to relationship as a cold loveless compact, the same woman for the rest of his life, a young man saddled with an older they have three children, one of whom women, as if this might somehow explain dies tragically in childhood. He himself his long absences. But Shakespeare dies at the age of 52 and is buried in the remained married to Anne for 36 years, same church where he was baptized. and they had three children together. VISIT THEBROADSTAGE.ORG 15 He never bought property in London like End), The Changing Room (West End), The his fellow artists and when he retired, he Crucible, (The Royal Exchange), Othello moved back to Stratford to be with Anne. (Lyric Hammersmith), A Doll’s House There must have been something tugging (Oxford Stage Company), The Alchemist him back home... (Cambridge Touring Company), Waiting Today, we can see his plays with the for Godot (Belgrade Theatre), Lennon full benefit of modern technology, but (Liverpool Everyman). Writing credits: let us invite you to a barer stage, as it 1984-like, The Blitz Show, Infirmary Tales would have been in Shakespeare’s day, (Co-author, Liverpool Everyman), In the a company of actors in simple costume Midnight Hour (Bolton Octagon, The Young inviting the audience to use their Vic and National Tour), La Bete Humaine imagination - (adaptation for Nottingham Playhouse), Pro Patria (Adaptation for Hampstead “And as imagination bodies forth Theatre), Face (Musical adaptation of The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen The Alchemist, co-author Bob Carlton. Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing Watford Palace, Hornchurch, and A local habitation and a name…” Belgrade Theatre), Shakespeare his wife So what was he really like? and the dog (Edinburgh Festival, UK tour). Imagine. SALLY EDWARDS, Anne, Theatre credits include: Royal Lyceum Edinburgh (Hedda BIOS Gabler, Copenhagen, The Price), Globe/ ETT (Eternal Love by Howard Brenton), PHILIP WHITCHURCH, Will, playwright, Royal National Theatre (Broken Glass by Film credits include: Peterloo, by Mike Arthur Miller, Fanshen by David Hare), Leigh (in post production), Interview with Royal Shakespeare Company (Pericles, a Hitman, Einstein and Eddington, Beowulf The Duchess of Malfi), Young Vic (Macbeth, and Grundel, Wondrous Oblivion, Treasure Owners), Lyric Hammersmith (Lady Island, The English Patient. Television Audley’s Secret), Chichester (Arsnick and credits include: Doors Open, Taggart, Old Lace), Greenwich (Gaslight), Oxford Silent Witness, Place of Execution, Waking Stage Company (Hay Fever, Easter), Bath the Dead, Rocketman, Macbeth, New Theatre Royal Productions (The Browning Tricks, My Hero, Wire in the Blood, Foyle’s Version, The Twelve Pound Look), Queen’s War, Midsomer Murders, Monarch of the Theatre Hornchurch (A Taste of Honey), Glen, The Gift, Plotlands, Sharpe, The Bill, Theatre Clwyd (Three Sisters) and many GBH, The Brothers McGregor, Coronation regional repertory theatres. Television Street. Theatre credits include: King appearances include: Doc Martin, Silent Lear (Royal Exchange), As You Like It, The Witness, Trial and Retribution, Wire in the Changeling, The Broken Heart (Globe Blood, London Bridge, Casualty, Holby Theatre), Ghost stories (West End), Dark City, Coronation Street, Attachments, Road (Royal Lyceum Edinburgh), The Doctors, Sugar Rush, Empathy, The Bill, Orphan of Xhao (RSC), Boris Godunov Wycliffe and Autopsy. Films include: Green (RSC), Life of Galileo (RSC), Billy Elliot Fingers, Princes in the Tower and Nature of (West End and Broadway), Summerfolk the Beast. (National Theatre), ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore (Young Vic), An Inspector Calls (West 16 JAN/FEB 2018 JULIA ST JOHN, director, Directing credits: Shakespeare His Wife and the Dog, Edinburgh Festival and UK tour, Walter & Lenny, Chichester Festival Theatre, Looking for Vi, Riverside Studios. Theatre credits include: I Capture the Castle, Jefferson’s Garden (Watford Palace), The History Boys (Crucible Theatre Sheffield), The Seagull, The Archbishop’s Ceiling (Southwark Playhouse), Our Father (Watford Palace), The Madness of George III (West Yorkshire Playhouse/Birmingham Rep), The Three Sisters (Chichester Festival Theatre), A Tale of Two Cities (Cambridge Theatre Company), Nana (Shared Experience/ Almeida), Private Lives, Far From The Madding Crowd, King Lear, Amadeus, She Stoops To Conquer (New Victoria Theatre), McGrotty and Ludmilla (Tron Theatre, Glasgow), Larkrise (Leicester Haymarket/Almeida), Gullivers Travels (Gate Theatre), and seasons at Theatr Clwyd and Westcliff Theatre. TV credits include: A Place of Execution, A Touch of Frost, In The Line of Beauty, Lewis, Casualty, Julian Fellows’ Most Mysterious Murders/Happy Valley, Doc Martin, The Glass, The Grand, High Stakes, The Brittas Empire, Harry Enfield and Chums, Poirot, GBH, A Question of Attribution, The Blackheath Poisonings, Gone To The Dogs, The Victoria Wood Show, Doctors, Joint Account, Lovejoy, Boon, Bloodrights. Film credits include: The Young Victoria. JAN/FEB 2018 VISIT THEBROADSTAGE.ORG 17.