Kirjahaku

Three plays focusing on the lives of incredible women. Characterized by vivid stagecraft and life-affirming humor, they offer unflinching views of social and sexual relations. Includes: Piaf, Camille and Queen Christina.

Alexandre DumasTranslated by Pam GemsDrama Characters: 21 male, 7 female, 1 pianist (doubling possible)Interor and exterior scenes, or 1 unit setThis unforgettable classic drama about the doomed love of a Parisian courtesan and a Marquis' son in the 1840s is brilliantly rendered for the modern stage. "An intelligent, deeply moving re-examination of one of our most potent dramatic myths." -Time Out"Superlative!" -Observer"A stunner." -Spectator"Compelling theatre." -BBC

'My loves, what are we to do? We don't do as they want any more, and they hate it. What are we to do?'Four determinedly 'liberated' – and very different – women ricochet around a tiny shared flat, while trying to pull together the shattered strands of their lives: Dusa is struggling to regain her children from their father, Fish is losing her lover to another woman, Stas is on the game to finance the course she wants to study at university, while Vi steadfastly refuses to eat....A bitingly sardonic modern classic, widely regarded as an historic icon of early feminism, Dusa, Fish, Stas and Vi was first seen at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1976 under the title Dead Fish, Michael Codron transferred the play to the West End under its new title where it enjoyed a huge success and established Pam Gems as a major new voice in British theatre.

This West End and Broadway hit is set in Paris in the 1970s. Legendary screen and stage actress, Marlene Dietrich, now in her seventies, prepares for her evening performance.

At the turn of the century, Mrs. Patrick Campbell was England's most celebrated and notorious actress. An acclaimed beauty, loved by many, she is remembered for her wit, for bad behaviour, and her close friendship with George Bernard Shaw. She was a great actress, when she wanted to be. She had a low boredom threshold and frequently behaved dreadfully on stage. She could be a monster to work with, an atrocious snob and possessed a wicked sense of humour. But, on form, she was incomparable, the glory of her age. Her work was daring and unpredictable, enhanced by her great beauty. Shaw worshipped her, wrote "Pygmalion" for her and begged her to play Eliza. Rather than living to work, she always worked to live and died in exile and poverty. Pam Gems' new play is about the art and craft of acting and the turmoil of being a woman who was meant to please but couldn't resist using her mind. "Mrs Pat" opened at the York Theatre Royal in March 2006.

Pam Gems has reworked her celebrated 1978 original, Piaf. She vividly captures the glamour and squalor, the rise and fall of the complex, fragile, and enigmatic performer Edith Piaf, who continues to be remembered and revered for her exceptional voice and extraordinary life.

A brilliant and painfully truthful portrait of Stanley Spencer, the wayward genius of modern British painting. Coming from humble origins, Stanley Spencer never lost his 'rough edges', despite being taken up by the smart set. His stubborn championing of ordinary people and local places as suitable subjects for religious painting was revolutionary. His appetite for life was hugely attractive, though his attitude to women in general and his long-suffering wife in particular was deeply selfish: 'Why can't I have two wives if that's what I need?' Pam Gems' play Stanley was first performed at the National Theatre, London, in February 1996, directed by John Caird and featuring Antony Sher as Stanley. The play won Best Play at the 1996 Evening Standard Awards, and Best New Play at the 1997 Olivier Awards.

The Snow Palace is the story of Polish playwright Stanislawa Przybyszewska, a pathfinder and a brave, lonely woman, as she writes her great play The Danton Affair. She died in her thirties of hypothermia in her unheated hut.