The Westbridge was written before the riots in August and is almost prophetic. Miss De-lahay�s unproduced play was already a joint winner of the 2010 Alfred Fagon Award for playwrights of African and Caribbean descent, together with Roy Williams� Sucker Punch. It is a startling new piece, given an exciting production by director Clint Dyer and designer Ultz.
13 is about politics and the part we play or don't play in decision making. Faced with a society, set in the present where the banks call the shots and where people die in pointless wars, Bartlett questions whether it has to be like this.
What is amazing about Parade is that Alfred Uhry, the author of the book of the musical, is the great nephew of the man who owned the pencil factory that Leo Frank (Alastair Brookshaw) managed in 1913 in Atlanta, Georgia. This is a part of Uhry's family history and maybe why the case has the ability to capture the imagination of its audience today. It is a story of a man who, out of his usual environment, and in a marriage that was far from ideal, found himself a victim not only of Anti-Semitism but also of the North South divide 50 years after the Civil war had set American against American.People continue to argue today about the rights and wrongs of the case against Leo Frank.