About the Play:

The Voysey Inheritance was one of Royal National Theatre of Britain's top 100 plays of the 20th century.

The Voysey Inheritance is a full-length drama by Harley Granville-Barker, adapted by David Mamet. When young Edward Voysey learns of generations of shady dealings within the family business, he is determined to set things right. The Voysey Inheritance is about the timely issue of morals vs. money as the rest of the family is decidedly against his plan.

The Voysey Inheritance explores greed, guilt and high-level financial corruption. Crime doesn't pay – or does it? When a con makes you rich, life gets a lot more complicated. For generations, the Voysey family business has been investing money for wealthy clients and secretly skimming money from their accounts. Edward, a junior partner who plans to take over the company from his aging father, is horrified when he discovers the embezzlement that has been keeping his relatives in the lap of luxury. But nobody wants Edward to dismantle the firm's criminal legacy – not his associates, not the woman he loves, and certainly not his large, pampered family. As the risk of exposure looms larger, and his sense of right and wrong becomes increasingly distorted, Edward comes to fully understand the consequences of his "inheritance." The Voysey Inheritance is a witty, impeccably crafted portrait of a family in the midst of a surprisingly modern moral dilemma.

One of the influential pioneers of modern British drama and a contemporary of George Bernard Shaw, Harley Granville-Barker wrote The Voysey Inheritance in 1905. One hundred years after its publication, this adaptation, by David Mamet, had its world premiere in 2005 at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. Since then the play had regional premieres at professional theatres across the US, including its New York premiere at off-Broadway's Atlantic Theater Company in 2006.

Cast: 4 female, 8 male

What people say:

"Scintillating … The script resonates with [Granville Barker's] literate wit and Mamet's sharp, spare dynamism." — San Francisco Chronicle

"As powerful an exploration of commercial misconduct as Mamet's own hardheaded business-themed dramas Glengarry Glen Ross and American Buffalo … It's difficult to imagine a work more presciently engaged with the ethics of transgression and repayment." — San Francisco Weekly

"A wonderful ride ... Bristles with relevance to contemporary business ethics and morality." — Contra Costa Times

About the Playwright:

Harley Granville-Barker (1877-1946) was a renowned playwright, director and actor, most famously known for being one of the most influential actors and directors of Shakespeare of all time. Passionate about the value of theatre and committed to exploring ways of revitalizing how plays are staged, when he retired from the theatre, he began the work for which he is best known today, his multi-volume series of Prefaces to Shakespeare.

David Mamet is an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright as well as a director, novelist, poet, and essayist. He has written the screenplays for more than twenty films, including the Oscar-nominated The Verdict. His more than twenty plays include the Pulitzer Prizewinning Glengarry Glen Ross. Born in Chicago in 1947, Mamet has taught at the Yale School of Drama, New York University, and Goddard College, and he lectures at the Atlantic Theater Company, of which he is a founding member. He lives in Santa Monica, California.