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Quilters
Quilters
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Author: Molly Newman and Barbara Damashek Publisher: Dramatists Play Service (cover may change) Format: Softcover # of Pages: 228 Pub. Date: 1986 Edition: Acting ISBN-10: 0822209284 ISBN-13: 9780822209287 Cast Size: 7 female, 5 musicians (bit parts)
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About
the Play:
Quilters has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues.
Quilters is a full-length musical comedic drama by Molly Newman
and Barbara Damashek. A pioneer woman and her daughters record
the family's hardships and joys in the exquisite quilts they make by
hand, each quilt "block" commemorating an event in their
lives. Combining music, dance movement and scenes of vivid dramatic
intensity, Quilters pays eloquent tribute to the courage and spirit
of America's pioneer woman.
Quilters is based on the book The Quilters: Women and
Domestic Art by Patricia Cooper and Norma Bradley. Ostensibly the
story of a pioneer woman and her six daughters, Quilters
blends a series of interrelated scenes into a rich mosaic which
captures the sweep and beauty, the terror and joy, the harsh
challenge and abiding rewards of frontier life. Illuminating stories
contained in various patches or "blocks" with music, dance
and drama, the action depicts the lot of women on the frontier:
girlhood, marriage, childbirth, spinsterhood, twisters, fire, illness
and death. But, with this, there is also love, warmth, rich and
lively humour and the moving spectacle of simple human dignity and
steadfastness in the face of adversity. In the end, when the various
patches are assembled into one glorious, brilliantly colourful quilt,
the effect is both breathtaking and magical – and a theatrical
masterstroke which will linger in the mind and memory long after the
house lights have dimmed.
Quilters premiered in 1982 at The Denver Theater Company
and became a record-setting regional theater success before its
presentation at the Edinburgh Festival (where it won a Fringe First
Award). It opened on Broadway in 1984 at the Jack Lawrence Theatre and was nominated for six Tony
Awards, including Best Musical. The
play has been
performed
in regional, high school, college, and community theatre productions.
Cast: 7 female, 5 musicians (bit parts)
What people say:
"Who would have thought that
quilts, quilting – quilters – had so much joy and pain, laughter
and tears, so much life, beauty and drama in them?" —
Drama-Logue
"…an unqualified success, as
bright as the colors used in the quilts themselves." —
Hollywood Reporter
"Quilters is a
show pieced together with love and stitched with pride … a thing of
beauty, comfort and joy." — New York Post
"…a tender and moving
theatre work, a human patchwork rippling in the breeze of memory."
— Newsweek
About the Playwright:
Molly Newman is an Emmy Award-winning television writer and
producer. Her varied television career includes Murphy Brown
and Frasier. She began her playwriting career as co-author of
Quilters, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award and a
Helen Hayes Award. Quilters and her second play Shooting
Stars have both been produced on the mainstages of several
regional theatres including The Mark Taper Forum, Actor's Theatre of
Louisville, Houston’s Alley Theatre, The Kennedy Center, The Denver
Center Theatre Company and The Pittsburgh Public Theatre. She resides
in Los Angeles.
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