It hasn't been professionally performed in the UK since the 1980s, but the Finborough Theatre has announced that it will be reviving THE BIOGRAPH GIRL as part of its newly announced season. The new production, directed by Jenny Eastop, will run 22 May to 9 June 2018...
"You laugh at your flickers, Miss Gish. But you wouldn’t laugh at the Mona Lisa."
"The Mona Lisa’s art."
"My pictures are a new kind of art. Maybe more important."
Commissioned by the Finborough Theatre as part of their acclaimed ‘Celebrating British Music Theatre’ series, the first professional UK production since its 1980 premiere, THE BIOGRAPH GIRL by Warner Brown and David Heneker.
From the composer of HALF A SIXPENCE, a joyous musical celebration of Hollywood's glorious era of silent film – beginning in 1912 when disreputable “flickers” are shown in fleapits and no self-respecting actor will appear in them, and ending in 1927 with movies now a glamorous, multi-million dollar industry and the first talking pictures signal the doom of silent films. In a breathtaking sweep of just fifteen years, the great innovative directors created filmmaking as we know it today, groundbreaking movie moguls laid the foundations of the entertainment industry, and trailblazing actors launched the Hollywood star system.
Weaving together the heartbreaks and triumphs of the flawed genius director D. W. Griffith and the first movie stars Lilian Gish and Mary Pickford, THE BIOGRAPH GIRL is a love letter to the
The libretto has been specially revised for this production by its original co-writer Warner Brown and includes – for the very first time – the reintroduction of songs cut from the West End premiere production.
The Biograph Girl received its West End premiere at the Phoenix Theatre in 1980, directed by Victor Spinetti, with Lillian Gish in the audience. This production is directed by Jenny Eastop who returns to the Finborough Theatre following her production of Mr Gillie for which she received an OffWestEnd nomination for Best Director.
