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Dramaturgy: An Ideal Husband

aih-final-web-240x300I realize this is after-the-fact, but I wanted to include our thoughts on this production here, for the edification of other theaters who may want to produce this work. 

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was an Irish-born poet, novelist and playwright, best known for his daring psychological thriller/morality tale, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and his hilarious but insubstantial comedy play, The Importance of Being Earnest.
Wilde is widely acknowledged to have had a genius intellect. He spoke and read several languages and took double first class honors at Oxford (roughly equivalent to earning two simultaneous bachelor’s degrees, magna cum laude). He read widely and deeply, and loved the Classics, especially Greek literature. He also exhibited a lifelong fascination with the Catholic Church, read the Bible and St. Augustine while in jail, and requested a priest to administer Last Rites on his death bed.

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Introducing “Edward Tulane”

MJET-FINAL-web-240x300The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane is a gorgeous stage adaptation by Dwayne Hartford of Kate DiCamillo’s children’s novel. DiCamillo is the award-winning author of such diverse books as Because of Winn Dixie, The Tale of Despereaux and Flora and Ulysses.

The plot of …Edward Tulane is fairly simple: a china rabbit is separated from his owner, and is found in turn by: a fisherman and his wife, a hobo and his dog, and a poverty-stricken little boy and his dying sister.  The premise of the story is a bit harder to articulate. 

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Composing A CHRISTMAS CAROL

 At the age of 31, Charles Dickens had already lived through several reversals of fortune and circumstance: from an idyllic early childhood, to the trauma of separation from his family, to a tentative career in journalism, to the triumphant reception…

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“A Christmas Carol” is tuning up…

ACC posterIt is a rare theater season in our community that doesn’t find SOME company putting forth an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ season-defining classic, A Christmas Carol.   afO has thus far resisted the temptation to throw its own offering into the ring…until we ran across Doris Baizley’s delightfully clever and fresh retelling, which is tailor-made for the intimacy of the black box theater where we perform.

First presented at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, in 1977, the production proved so popular that it was revived for five subsequent years.

In this version, a down-on-its-luck British travelling troupe is wondering if the show really CAN go on, after discovering that their Tiny Tim has been fired and their Scrooge abandoned them in Budapest.

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Introducing…BENTLEY!

The 26th season of shows produced by local faith-driven theatre company, all for One productions, is soon to begin. But behind the scenes we've been hard at work all summer to ensure that our audiences will enjoy the same excellent,…

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Some SECRET GARDEN FAQs

TSG-web-1-238x300Part of our mission at all for One is to educate as well as entertain and inspire. This blog and the dramaturgy in each program are among our efforts to enlighten and educate our audience.  We hope to deepen your understanding of the background and implications of the stories we present on stage.

Here are some topics which may raise questions in the minds of our audience:  Why India? What is cholera? Why are gardens walled at Misselthwaite? Are English and American robins the same? These are addressed  briefly in the program, but we hope you will take the time to “read more about it” on this page, and share what you learn with your children who have enjoyed The Secret Garden. 

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The Secret Garden and Kid-Lit’s Golden Age

The Golden Age of British children’s literature refers to a remarkable period during which a vast number of western literature’s best-loved books were written. Consider that between 1900 and 1930:

  • Beatrix Potter wrote and illustrated her many picture books for young children, beginning with The Tale of Peter Rabbit.
  • A.A. Milne created Winnie the Pooh.
  • E. Nesbit wrote her wonderful children’s novels, including The Railway Children, Five Children and It, and The Enchanted Castle.
  • Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote A Little Princess, The Secret Garden and Little Lord Fauntleroy.
  • J.M. Barrie created Peter Pan.

And this list is not exhaustive at all. There was also an explosion of American children’s literature at around the same time: The Wizard of Oz, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, The Call of the Wild and Pollyanna, to name a few.

The wonderful thing about all these books, to my mind, is that they are not written “down” to children, over-simplified and dripping with moral lessons. Rather, they are strong original stories which are amusing, engaging and often thought-provoking, but which are most appropriate to the genre (fairly new at the time) of children’s literature.

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