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Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1998

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Adaptation

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Original Playwright - John Gay, Written in collaboration with Illona Sekacz

John Gay's great comic masterpiece is generally agreed to be the first ever musical. Written in 1728, THE BEGGAR'S OPERA is a savagely funny satire on marriage, money and morals-as relevant and biting today as it was when first written. In this new version by John Caird and Ilona Sekacz, the old story is given new life as all our favorite characters return, in a play within a play, where beggars and thieves create a world of love, lust, violence, deceit, greed and a little more love. Ilona Sekacz's score uses all the old tunes, but brings them up to date in a superb synthesis of eighteenth and twentieth-century musical styles. John Caird's stage directions make the old text sizzle with life, giving a clear context for Gay's ruthless characters and driving the convoluted plot at a helter-skelter pace. Peachum, a purveyor of stolen goods, and his rapacious wife, are horrified to find that their only child, Polly, has fallen in love with, and worse still married, Captain Macheath, the famous highwayman. Peachum

Prince Edward, London

1991

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Music Theatre International, NY

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Original cast recording: London (828234)

1991

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Musical

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Music by Stephen Schwartz; lyrics by Stephen Schwartz; book by John Caird

The themes of families, relationships, and learning to let go weave their way through 'Children of Eden' - a musical based on the first nine-and-a-half chapters of the book of Genesis.

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Music Theatre International, NY

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Canadian cast recording: Mirvish (JE.01)

1997

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Musical

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Music by Paul Gordon; lyrics by Paul Gordon; lyrics by John Caird; book by John Caird. Based on the novel by Charlotte Bronte

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Royal Shakespeare Company >>>

Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1998

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(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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22

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2 boys, 1 girl (flexible casting): 20 total

J.M. Barrie, in a new version by John Caird and Trevor Nunn

This is the beloved story of Peter, Wendy, Michael, John, Capt. Hook, Smee, the lost boys, pirates and the indians, and, of course, Tinker Bell, in their adventures in Never Land. However, for the first time, the play is here restored to Barrie's original intentions. In the words of John Caird: "A brief explanation of some of the decisions we took in revising the text may be useful to anyone considering their own production of this version&We were fascinated to discover that there was no one single document called PETER PAN. What we found was a tantalizing number of different versions, all of them containing some very agreeable surprises&We have made some significant alterations, the greatest of which is the introduction of a new character, the Storyteller, who is in fact the author himself. To a reader of the play, one of its most enjoyable ingredients is Barrie's unmistakable authorial tone. He tells the story of Peter Pan partly through dialogue and partly by means of his inimitable stage directions. In a whimsical, ambiguous and ironical manner he speaks here as clearly to adults as he does to children. Moreover, many of the play's complicated conceits are only comprehensible if Barrie's commentary can be heard in parallel with the voices of the characters. This device also allows us to prepare our audience with some essential background history of the Darling family in a brief prologue, and to extend the narrative at the end of the play to include Barrie's heartbreaking and heartwarming conclusion to Peter and Wendy's story."