The Secret Garden (Swale)
Full Length Play, Drama / 3m, 5f, 2boy(s), 1girl(s)
When a garden's kept proper, all weeded and neat, that chases the wild away. But when it's left alone, for nature, who knows what secret things'd grow there....
In Jessica Swale's richly imagined adaptation of Hodgson Burnett's much loved classic, we follow the fortunes of Mary as her ice begins to melt and her curiosity leads her on one of the greatest adventures in popular literature.
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Cast Size
3m, 5f, 2boy(s), 1girl(s)Duration
120 minutes (2 hours)Subgenre
Adaptations (Literature)
Additional Info
Misselthwaite is no place for children. Full of dark corners and strange night-time noises, Mary is certain there is more to Misselthwaite than meets the eye. But although she can't solve the mysteries alone, when her maid Martha offers the hand of friendship, Mary won't have it. Mistresses can't be friends with their servants...or can they?
Will Martha melt Mary's frosty exterior? Will Mary uncover the source of the cries in the night? And will her curiosity lead her to solve the greatest mystery of Misselthwaite, the legend of the Secret Garden?
Considerations
License details
- Minimum Fee: £55 per performance plus VAT when applicable.
Production
Details
- Time Period: 1910s / WWI
- Duration: 120 minutes (2 hours)
- Setting: The play is set in 1910, in India and Yorkshire.
- Additional Features: Puppetry
- Features / Contains: Period Costumes
Casting
3m, 5f, 2boy(s), 1girl(s)Mary Lennox, a young girl
Martha, a servant, the same age as Mary
Dickon, Martha’s brother
Colin Craven, a sickly boy
Mrs Medlock, a strict housekeeper
Archibald Craven, Colin’s father (Mary’s Uncle)
Ben Weatherstaff, the Gardener
Mrs Phipps, a servant at Misselthwaite
Mr Pitcher, a servant at Misselthwaite
Dr Craven, Archibald’s Cousin
Mrs Lennox, Mary’s mother
Mr Lennox, Mary’s father
Ayah, the Lennox’s Indian house servant
Inspectors 1 and 2, Earthquake experts
Dr Madeleine Brés, a pioneering Doctor
Several puppets.
Many of the parts can be doubled.
Cast Attributes
- Reduced casting (Doubling Possible)
- Features Children
- Roles for Teens
- Flexible casting
- Roles for Children
- Room for Extras
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Authors
Jessica Swale
Jessica Swale is a writer and director. She is Artistic Director of Red Handed Theatre Company and a returning playwright at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Plays include Nell Gwynn (winner of the Egerton Foundation New Play Award 2015), All's Will that Ends Will (Bremen Shakespeare Company) and adaptations of Sense an ...
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