About the Play:

The Changing Room has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Male/Male Scenes.

The Changing Room is a full-length drama by David Storey. Set in the changing room of a rugby league team on match day, The Changing Room explores the issues that beset everyday life, questioning concepts such as class and position in a post-industrial community.

The Changing Room offers an intimate, revealing portrait of a Northern England semi-pro rugby league team. Set entirely in the team’s locker room before, during and after the course of one game, the documentary drama follows the working class athletes' pre- and post-game rituals, offering a powerful view of how people relate to one another, particularly in the stressful trenches of life.

The Changing Room premiered in 1971 at the Royal Court in London. The 1973 Broadway production won several awards including the New York Drama Critics' Circle award for Best Play and the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor for John Lithgow in his Broadway debut. While the play is rarely performed thanks to a cast of 22 who all have to look like genuine rugby players, it has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops.

Cast: 22 male

What people say:

"If The Changing Room is Storey's most powerful drama, it is because he has found in sport his purest metaphor for the war of existence." — Time Magazine

"...mysterious and ultimately mesmerizing...." — The New York Times

"David Storey is a writer who genuinely extends the territory of drama." — The Guardian

"It's about exactly what it is: Storey offers us, with an unforced tenderness, the shifting moods of everyday experience...the scene is busy, purposeful and exhilarating. You'd never imagine realism could be this theatrical...The Changing Room takes you into its world in a way few plays achieve." — Independent on Sunday

About the Playwright:

David Malcolm Storey (1933-2017) was a well-known English playwright, screenwriter, and poet as well as an award-winning novelist and a former professional rugby league player. The son of a coal miner, he was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, England and earned a diploma from the Slade School of Art in London. His early life as a professional rugby player and an art student influenced his works. He documented much of this in his seventh novel Saville, which won the Man Booker Prize for fiction in 1976.