Optional Supplemental/Background Information

The following information gives some contextual information about the play including details about the playwright and the history of the story and the original production. It is intended for you to use as much or as little as interests you and is in no way required for you to be familiar with it in regards to our discussions.

PLAYWRIGHT: LAURA WADE

Laura Wade is a British playwright best known for her plays POSH and HOME, I’M DARLING.  POSH is a scarily relevant play about privileged white boys at university before they head out into the world of business and plitics and destroy lives.  POSH was nominated for several new play awards.  HOME, I’M DARLING is a new comedy in which a career professional decided to leave her job and live with her husband as a ‘50’s housewife.  The play won the Olivier Award for Best New Comedy in 2019.

MEDIA: LAURA WADE

• Evening Standard Print Interview with Laura Wade

• The Guardian Print Interview with Laura Wade

• YouTube Interview with Laura Wade – My friend Dan Rebellato, who wrote the play STATIC which I directed several years ago, began an amazing interview series at the beginning of the lockdown. He also spoke with one of the Loose In London groups several years ago. I will include Dan’s discussion with Lucy Prebble when we get to her play, ENRON.

• Podcast Interview with Laura Wade – Part of the Royal Court’s terrific podcast series where playwright Simon Stephens interviews the leading names in British playwriting. We will also revisit the podcast for Lucy Prebble’s ENRON.

HISTORY: TIPPING THE VELVET

TIPPING THE VELVET is an adaptation of Sarah Waters’ debut novel of the same name. It was included in the New York Times’ Notable Books list of 1999.

• TIPPING THE VELVET Review in the New York Times

A critically lauded and controversial BBC adaptation was broadcast in 2002. The Multnomah County Library has a DVD copy of this adaptation available for check-out.

FINGERSMITH, another of Waters’ novels, was adapted by OSF in 2015, the same year that TIPPING THE VELVET was produced at the Lyric Hammersmith in London.

• OSF materials for FINGERSMITH

Laura Wade was commissioned by Sean Foley, the artistic director of the Lyric Hammersmith theatre, to adapt TIPPING THE VELVET as its opening production after a major expansion and renovation of the venue.  This is somewhat nodded to in the opening monologue of the play. 

SONGS

In the published edition of the play (which we are reading), Laura states that the songs they used in the original production are not printed in the text so that each director can shape the play with their own music choices. Laura sent me a copy of the production draft of the play which includes the songs they used. I have included their songs and the page numbers of where they in our script.

Also, remember that the songs would be orchestrated for more of a Music Hall feel. A great example of this type of reworking is Max Raabe & Palast Orchester’s version of Brittney Spears’ “Oops, I Did It Again.”

FYI - You will need a Spotify account to play the songs below.