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What I Did Last Summer
What I Did Last Summer
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Biz Staff Pick!
Author: A.R. Gurney Publisher: Dramatists Play Service (cover may change) Format: Softcover # of Pages: 70 Pub. Date: 1998 Edition: Acting ISBN-10: 0822212366 ISBN-13: 9780822212362 Cast Size: 4 female, 2 male
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About the Play:
What I Did Last Summer has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues, Male Monologues, Female/Female Scenes, Female/Male Scenes, and Male/Male Scenes.
What I Did Last Summer is a full-length comedic drama by A.R. Gurney. A warm-hearted, gently humorous memory play which, in delineating the coming of age of a teenage boy, pinpoints the foibles of the upper-middle-class society of which he is a product. Especially recommended for
school and contest use.
What I Did Last Summer is set in a well-to-do vacation colony on the shores of Lake Erie; the time 1945, during the final stages of World War II. Charlie, an incipiently rebellious fourteen-year-old, is summering with his mother and sister (his father is fighting in the Pacific) before going off to an expensive boarding school in the fall. Although he intended to spend the summer loafing and socializing with his friends, the need for spending money forces him to take a job as handyman for an iconoclastic, bohemian art teacher, Anna Trumbull, a former member of the "upper crust" who has lost both her fortune and her regard for the ideals of her upbringing. Sensing a kindred spirit in Charlie, she tries to stretch his mind by teaching him painting and sculpture — and exposing him to "radical" ideas about life and love which, in time, persuade Charlie to reject the notion of going back to school. The result is a family crisis and, more specifically, a showdown between Anna and Charlie's conservative mother, a clash of philosophies which raises as many questions as it answers and, in the end, stimulates the self-awareness which will shape the man Charlie is destined to become.
What I Did Last Summer was successfully
produced in 1981 by Off-Broadway's prestigious Circle Repertory Company. The
play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and
workshops and has
been produced widely by schools, colleges, and community
theatres.
Cast: 4 female, 2 male
What people say:
"A.R. Gurney's latest and most compelling sojourn into the discreet heart of America's leisure class—the world which he has continued to expose with fondness, wit and biting accuracy." — Other Stages
"The play is warm, touching and humorous, with something to say about the conflict between materialism and idealism which is so basic to the American dream." — The Stage (London)
"Bravo to all and particularly a bravo to that new sage and chronicler of the American white middle class, Gurney." — New York Post
About the Playwright:
A.R. Gurney (1930-2017) is known as one of the most
prolific and produced playwrights in America. His work focuses
primarily on the issues and realities of middle-class American life
and has been produced on international theatre stages for more than
50 years. He is also the author of three novels and a two-time
Pulitzer Prize for Drama nominee, the recipient of the Drama Desk
Award, and the Award of Merit from the Academy and Institute of Arts
and Letters.
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