To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday
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Play Description
A grieving widower must accept his wife's death to save himself and his relationship with his daughter. David loves his wife, Gillian. Unfortunately, she died two years ago. David deals with his grief by continuing his romance with her “ghost” during walks on the beach at night. While David lives in the past, other family problems crop up in the present. Brother and sister-in-law Paul and Esther visit to try to help David's daughter, Rachel. She has lost her mother and needs her father to snap back into the real world for her sake.
Production Info
Cast: 7 total (5 female, 2 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
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- About the Author(s)
- About the Book
- Special Notes
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Press Quotes
“… Though TO GILLIAN begins as a simple dramatization of its hero’s obsessive mourning, it gradually expands to become a richer form of family drama … [Mr Brady] writes with a rueful sophistication that keeps his story’s sentimentality at bay … TO GILLIAN is peppered with sharp, evenhanded observations about the tenuous ties that connect husbands and wives and parents and children … if TO GILLIAN is a play that sends a ghost flying out of [the] heavens, its appeal derives from its author’s keen sensitivity to life down here on earth.” —Frank Rich, The New York Times
“This first major work by Michael Brady has well-dimensioned characters, solid conflict, piquant writing and gives off a warm, affirmative glow … When it has become not uncommon to encounter plays with no sympathetic characters, audiences will respond affectionately to everyone In GILLIAN. Working on a small canvas, the author is in impressive control of his material …” —Richard Hummler, Variety
Author(s)
Michael BradyMichael Brady's first play, SARA, was produced by Equity Library Theatre in 1980 at Lincoln Center. KORCZAK'S CHILDREN won the first Jesu Award in Playwriting and was produced by the Boston College Dramatics Society in 1982. TO GILLIAN ON HER 37TH BIRTHDAY was developed through the literary department of The Ensemble Studio Theatre and M Square Entertainment and moved to Circle-in-the-Square. GILLIAN was awarded the Oppenheimer Award for best play of 1983, and was produced as a film in 1996 by Sony Pictures. Other stage works include: TWO BEARS BLINKING, produced by New Theatre of Miami, SEMPER FI, produced by The Gloucester Stage Company, and HARD TIME, Main Street Stage, North Adams, Massachusetts. TO GILLIAN ON HER 37TH BIRTHDAY, KORCZAK'S CHILDREN, SEMPER FI, and TWO BEARS BLINKING are published by Broadway Play Publishing Inc. Michael's play TITLES was given a staged reading in July 2013 by the Berkshire Playwrights Lab in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. TITLES received another reading at Memberfest at The Ensemble Studio Theatre in November 2013. Both readings were directed by Giovanna Sardelli. Mr. Brady is a member of the Dramatists Guild and the Ensemble Studio Theatre. In addition to his writing, Michael served for several years as the Program Officer for Artists for the Massachusetts Cultural Council, overseeing a grant giving program for literary, visual, and performance artists. He lives in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts with his wife, Patricia Jacobsen-Brady.
Special Notes
If original stage producers credits appear in bold below, all licensees are required to include them in the following form on the title page in all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play and in all advertising in which the full cast appears in size of type not less than ten percent (10%) of the size of the title of the Play:
Opened at Ensemble Studio Theater, New York, then moved to a commercial run Off-Broadway at Circle In the Square
In addition, the following must appear within all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play:
by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
www.broadwayplaypub.com
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