PAST READINGS
December 16, 2013
A Bold Stroke for a Wife by Susanna Centlivre's
Directed by Rebecca Patterson Dramaturgy by Tasha Solomon-Gordon
SUSANNA CENTLIVRE was an English dramatic writer and actress, born about 1667. At sixteen she married the nephew of Sir Stephen Fox, and on his death she married an officer named Carroll, who was killed in a duel. Left in poverty, in 1700 she began to support herself by writing for the stage; some of her early plays are signed S. Carroll. By number of performances, Centlivre could fairly be called the most successful English dramatist after William Shakespeare and before the twentieth century.
A Bold Stroke for a Wife is written in the tradition of the restoration comedy of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Following a period of cultural Puritanism, these plays reveled in sharp satire of social mores, and racy, bawdy comedy. A Bold Stroke reflects the later restoration comedies, which were geared toward an increasingly middle-class and female audience. During this time, the tamer sentimental comedy, was emerging as a genre. The play can also be seen as a satiric response to these plays and their preoccupation with morality and virtue.
REBECCA PATTERSON (Director) NYC: As You Like It, The Wonder, Twelfth Night, The Taming of the Shrew, Edward II, School For Scandal, Much Ado About Nothing, The Lucky Chance, Antony & Cleopatra, The Feign’d Courtesans, The Duchess of Malfi, The Rover, Macbeth (The Queen’s Company) Wapato, Greeks & Centaurs (Women’s Project), The Imaginary Invalid (Resonance Ensemble), The Gabriels (SPF) Regional: One Flea Spare, Angels in America, Vinegar Tom, Too Tall Blondes in Love, Marisol, The Dance and The Railroad and The Lisbon Traviata. Rebecca is Artistic Director of The Queen’s Company, known for its innovative productions of classical plays featuring all-female casts.
TASHA GORDON-SOLOMON's (Dramaturg) plays have been developed and produced at Ars Nova, Dixon Place, The Flea, the Public Theater, and the 52nd Street Project, among others. She is a member of the Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group, a recipient of the Dramatist Guild Fellowship, and an alumna of the Ars Nova Playgroup. Directing credits include Ensemble Studio Theater, the New York Fringe Festival, The Brick, Columbia University Graduate Playwriting Department and the Young Playwrights Festival at the O’Neill. She received her MFA in Dramatic Writing at NYU, where she was the recipient of a Goldberg Fellowship in Playwriting and a Tisch Fellowship.
Directed by Rebecca Patterson Dramaturgy by Tasha Solomon-Gordon
SUSANNA CENTLIVRE was an English dramatic writer and actress, born about 1667. At sixteen she married the nephew of Sir Stephen Fox, and on his death she married an officer named Carroll, who was killed in a duel. Left in poverty, in 1700 she began to support herself by writing for the stage; some of her early plays are signed S. Carroll. By number of performances, Centlivre could fairly be called the most successful English dramatist after William Shakespeare and before the twentieth century.
A Bold Stroke for a Wife is written in the tradition of the restoration comedy of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Following a period of cultural Puritanism, these plays reveled in sharp satire of social mores, and racy, bawdy comedy. A Bold Stroke reflects the later restoration comedies, which were geared toward an increasingly middle-class and female audience. During this time, the tamer sentimental comedy, was emerging as a genre. The play can also be seen as a satiric response to these plays and their preoccupation with morality and virtue.
REBECCA PATTERSON (Director) NYC: As You Like It, The Wonder, Twelfth Night, The Taming of the Shrew, Edward II, School For Scandal, Much Ado About Nothing, The Lucky Chance, Antony & Cleopatra, The Feign’d Courtesans, The Duchess of Malfi, The Rover, Macbeth (The Queen’s Company) Wapato, Greeks & Centaurs (Women’s Project), The Imaginary Invalid (Resonance Ensemble), The Gabriels (SPF) Regional: One Flea Spare, Angels in America, Vinegar Tom, Too Tall Blondes in Love, Marisol, The Dance and The Railroad and The Lisbon Traviata. Rebecca is Artistic Director of The Queen’s Company, known for its innovative productions of classical plays featuring all-female casts.
TASHA GORDON-SOLOMON's (Dramaturg) plays have been developed and produced at Ars Nova, Dixon Place, The Flea, the Public Theater, and the 52nd Street Project, among others. She is a member of the Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group, a recipient of the Dramatist Guild Fellowship, and an alumna of the Ars Nova Playgroup. Directing credits include Ensemble Studio Theater, the New York Fringe Festival, The Brick, Columbia University Graduate Playwriting Department and the Young Playwrights Festival at the O’Neill. She received her MFA in Dramatic Writing at NYU, where she was the recipient of a Goldberg Fellowship in Playwriting and a Tisch Fellowship.