Ian Robins Dury was an English singer, songwriter and actor who rose to fame in the late 1970s, during the punk and new wave era of rock music. He was the lead singer and lyricist of Ian Dury and the Blockheads and previously Kilburn and the High Roads.
Barbara Jane Horrocks is a British actress. She portrayed the roles of Bubble and Katy Grin in the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous. She was nominated for the 1993 Olivier Award for Best Actress for the title role in the stage play The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, and received Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for the role in the film version of Little Voice.
The Rocky Horror Show is a musical with music, lyrics and book by Richard O'Brien. A humorous tribute to the science fiction and horror B movies of the 1930s through to the early 1960s, the musical tells the story of a newly engaged couple getting caught in a storm and coming to the home of a mad transvestite scientist, Dr Frank-N-Furter, unveiling his new creation, Rocky, a sort of Frankenstein-style monster in the form of an artificially made, fully grown, physically perfect muscle man complete "with blond hair and a tan".
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is a sung-through musical with lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the character of Joseph from the Bible's Book of Genesis. This was the first Lloyd Webber and Rice musical to be performed publicly; their first collaboration, The Likes of Us, written in 1965, was not performed until 2005. Its family-friendly retelling of Joseph, familiar themes, and catchy music have resulted in numerous stagings. According to the owner of the copyright, the Really Useful Group, by 2008 more than 20,000 schools and amateur theatre groups had staged productions.
Torch Song Trilogy is a collection of three plays by Harvey Fierstein rendered in three acts: International Stud, Fugue in a Nursery, and Widows and Children First! The story centers on Arnold Beckoff, a Jewish homosexual, drag queen, and torch singer who lives in New York City in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The four-hour play begins with a soliloquy in which he explains his cynical disillusionment with love.
André William Gregory is a French-born American theatre director, writer and actor. He is best known for co-writing and starring in My Dinner with Andre, a 1981 comedy-drama film directed by Louis Malle. Gregory studied acting at The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City.
Six Characters in Search of an Author is an Italian play by Luigi Pirandello, written and first performed in 1921. An absurdist metatheatric play about the relationship among authors, their characters, and theatre practitioners, it premiered at the Teatro Valle in Rome to a mixed reception, with shouts from the audience of "Manicomio!" ("Madhouse!") and "Incommensurabile!", a reaction to the play's illogical progression. Reception improved at subsequent performances, especially after Pirandello provided for the play's third edition, published in 1925, a foreword clarifying its structure and ideas.
Blasted is the first play by the British author Sarah Kane. It was first performed in 1995 at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in London.
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour is a stage play by Tom Stoppard with music by André Previn. It was first performed in 1977. The play criticises the Soviet practice of treating political dissidence as a form of mental illness. Its title derives from the popular mnemonic used by music students to remember the notes on the lines of the treble clef. The cast comprises six actors, but also a full orchestra, which not only provides music throughout the play but also forms an essential part of the action. A chamber-orchestra version also exists.
The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a non-commercial West End theatre in Sloane Square, London, England. In 1956 it was acquired by and remains the home of the English Stage Company, which is known for its contributions to contemporary theatre and won the Europe Prize Theatrical Realities in 1999.
David Harrower is a Scottish playwright who lives in Glasgow. Harrower has published over 10 original works, as well as numerous translations and adaptations.
Faith Healer is a play by Brian Friel about the life of the faith healer Francis Hardy as monologued through the shifting memories of Hardy, his wife, Grace, and stage manager, Teddy. It was first produced in 1979.
Martin Andrew Crimp is a British playwright.
The Changing Room is a 1971 play by David Storey, set in a men's changing room before, during and after a rugby league football game. It premiered at the Royal Court Theatre on 9 November 1971, directed by Lindsay Anderson. The 1973 Broadway production, directed by Michael Rudman, won several awards including the New York Drama Critics' Circle award for Best Play and the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor for John Lithgow. The technical director for the play was the former Great Britain Rugby League captain Bev Risman.
Maxwell Robert Guthrie Stewart "Max" Stafford-Clark is a British theatre director.
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby is an 8½ hour-long adaptation of Charles Dickens’ 1839 novel, performed in two parts. Part 1 was 4 hours in length with one interval of 15 minutes. Part 2 was 4½ hours in length with two intervals of 12 minutes. It was originally presented onstage over two evenings, or in its entirety from early afternoon with a dinner break. Later it was presented on television over four evenings.
The Rise and Fall of Little Voice is a 1992 play written by English dramatist Jim Cartwright.
Robert Holman was a British dramatist whose work has been produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and the Royal Court Theatre, as well as in the West End and elsewhere, since the 1970s. He was a resident dramatist at both the RSC and the National Theatre.
Macbeth is a 1979 videotaped version of Trevor Nunn's Royal Shakespeare Company production of the play by William Shakespeare. Produced by Thames Television, it features Ian McKellen as Macbeth and Judi Dench as Lady Macbeth. The TV version was directed by Philip Casson.
Alexi Kaye Campbell is a Greek-British playwright and actor. In 2009, his play The Pride was given the Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre.
