I Am a Camera

I Am a Camera by John Van Druten

Nollendorfstraร e 17, Schรถneberg, Berlin, Germany.

#Final draft

I Am a Camera is presented by arrangement with Samuel French Ltd Historical Context: The Rise of the Nazis in Berlin By the early 1930s, Germany was in a desperate condition. Its defeat in World War I and the harsh conditions imposed by the United States, Britain, and France in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles—including debilitating reparation payments to the victors—had left Germany humiliated and impoverished, with ruinous inflation eating away at its economy. The worldwide Depression that followed the 1929 U.S. stock market crash exacerbated the situation as banks failed, factories closed, and millions of people lost their jobs.

It all made for fertile ground for Hitler’s radical nationalist ideology. The Nazis promised to stop reparation payments, to give all Germans jobs and food, and to make them proud to be German again. And they blamed Jews for most of Germany’s problems. Jews became the targets of anti-Semitic attacks. In the wake of the murder of two leaders of the leftist Spartacus League, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg who was born in Zamosc, Poland, in 1919, a wave of riots against Ostjuden was launched.

Similar riots occurred during the short-lived revolutionary attempt, the Kapp Putsch in March 1920 and in November 1923, an area in the Eastern part of Berlin that was inhabited by Jews from Eastern Europe was the scene of a massacre.

In 1926 Joseph Goebbels was appointed Gauleiter of Berlin and he founded Der Angriff (The Attack), a Nazi Party organ, which he used to spread anti-Semitism and incite the population against Berlin’s Jewish press.

In the September 1930 elections the Nazi Party received 14.6% of the vote, four times as much as in the 1928 elections. The collapse of German democracy was accompanied by a crisis in the functioning of the Berlin city council.

On the Jewish New Year of 1931, Jews on the way home from the synagogues were attacked on the Kurfurstendamm in western Berlin.

The next year, 1932, saw a spate of attacks on Jewish university students and lecturers in the city. Many average Germans, believing the claims that German Jews were responsible for many of Germany’s problems, began to avoid their Jewish friends.

Signs appeared in grocery stores declaring that Jews were not welcome. Most non-Jews stopped supporting Jewish-owned businesses.

In the July 1932 elections the Nazis obtained 28.6% of the vote as against 37.4% on the national level; in the November elections that same year, the Nazis lost some of their support and gained 25.9% of the vote.

On the night of 30 January 1933, the SA celebrated Adolf Hitler’s appointment as Reich Chancellor by staging a torchlight parade in the streets of Berlin. Jews who had been active in anti-Nazi political parties and organisations fled the city.

By 1938, 60% of businesses owned by Jews in 1933 had gone out of business.

On Kristallnacht which took place on November 9-10 1938, most of the synagogues of Berlin were burnt down, and Jewish schools, the offices of Jewish public institutions and Jewish medical clinics came under attack.

Jewish department stores were stormed and ransacked, and the shattering of the shop windows of the Jewish clothing stores on Leipzigerstrasse gave the pogrom its name.

Dozens of Jews were murdered, and several thousand were arrested and taken to concentration camps.

In the wake of Kristallnacht, twelve hundred Jewish commercial enterprises in Berlin were put up for Aryanisation; buyers were found for seven hundred, while the remaining five hundred were declared unsuitable for sale.

CAST (In order of appearance) Harry Melling Joanne Howarth

Christopher Isherwood Fraulein Schneider

Freddie Capper

Fritz Wendel

Rebecca Humphries

Sally Bowles

Sophie Dickson Oliver Rix Sherry Baines

Natalia Landauer Clive Mortimer Mrs. Watson-Courtneidge

I Am a Camera - Scenic Breakdown Act 1 Scene 1 takes place in late July, around 1932. It is mid-afternoon.

Act 1 Scene 2 takes place in late October the same year. It is early afternoon.

Act 2 Scene 1 takes place 10 days later, in early November. It is late morning.

Act 2 Scene 2 takes place five days later. It is late morning.

Act 3 Scene 1 takes place 2 days later. It is midday.

Act 3 Scene 2 takes place 3 days later. It is early afternoon.

Act 3 Scene 3 takes place 3 days later, in the last days of November. It is early evening.

Christopher Isherwood 1904 - Isherwood was born in Disley, Cheshire.

1914 - Studied at St. Edmund’s preparatory school, where he made friends with the future poet, W.H. Auden.

1925 - Studied at Corpus Christi Cambridge without completing a degree, having deliberately failed his tripos.

For the next few years he lived with violinist André Mangeot, worked as secretary to Mangeot’s string quartet and studied Medicine at Kings College, London. During this time he wrote a book of nonsense poems, People One Ought to Know, with illustrations by Mangeot’s eleven-year-old son, Sylvain.

1928 - Isherwood’s first novel, All the Conspirators was published.

1930 - 1933 - Isherwood gave up his studies to join Auden in Berlin for a few weeks. He stayed on and taught English in Germany for three years.

1934 - The Memorial was published exploring English middle-class malaise in the 1920s.

1935 - The Last of Mr Norris was published 1937 - Wrote Sally Bowles, a short fiction.

1938 - Isherwood started with Auden a journey to China.

1939 - Goodbye to Berlin was published.

1939 - Journey to a War was published, based on his experiences in China, a country ravaged by civil war and a Japanese invasion.

1939 - Emigrated to the United States with Auden. They settled in southern California, where Isherwood worked as a teacher and wrote for Hollywood films.

During the war years in 1941-42 Isherwood worked at a Quaker hostel in Pennsylvania with refugees from Europe.

Photo: Isherwood and Auden by Carl Van Vechten, February 6, 1939

1943 - Isherwood became a follower of Swami Prabhavananda, producing several works on Indian Vedãnta in the following decades.

1945 - Prater Violet was published; a portrait of an Austrian Jewish filmmaker in pre-war London.

1946 - Isherwood became an American citizen.

1954 - The World in the Evening was a study of a young writer who attempts to understand the failure of his two marriages and his homosexual needs.

1959 - 1962 Taught as a guest professor at Los Angeles State College and the University of California at Santa Barbara.

1964 - A Single Man was published. The novel presented a single day in the life of lonely, middle-aged homosexual man, whose partner dies.

1965-66 - Taught at the University of California at Los Angeles.

1971 - Kathleen and Frank was published; a double portrait of his parents, as seen through his mother and father’s letters.

1975 - Won the Brandeis Medal for Fiction.

1977 - Christopher and his Kind was published; Isherwood’s examination of his complex relationship with Auden. His friend had died a few years before the book was published.

With his explicitly autobiographical works Isherwood become in the 1970s a leading spokesman for gay rights. He was one of the first internationally known figures to admit that he was homosexual.

1982 - People One Ought to Know was published.

1986 - Isherwood died in Santa Monica, on January 4.

Harry Melling – Christopher Isherwood Harry Melling’s stage credits include: When Did You Last See My Mother at the Trafalgar Studios; The School For Scandal at the Barbican Theatre; Women Beware Women at the National Theatre; Mother Courage and Her Children at the National Theatre; Coalition: Bedrooms, Dens, and Other Forms Of Magic at the Theatre 503.

His televisions credits include: The title role in Joe Mistry (Pilot) for Hartswood Films; regular in Garrows Law Series 3 for BBC; Merlin for BBC; Just William for BBC; Stephen Poliakoff’s Friends and Crocodiles for BBC. His film credits include five of the Harry Potter films playing the role of Dudley Dursley, and short film I Think Therefore I Am for Fourking Productions.

Joanne Howarth – Fraulein Schneider

Joanne trained at Rose Bruford College.

Theatre this millennium includes:, Bingo (Minerva Theatre/ Young Vic), You Can’t Take It With You (Manchester Royal Exchange/ Told By An Idiot) and Goodnight Mr Tom (Chichester Festival Theatre and tour) as well as The Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night (RSC); Hallelujah (Theatre 503); A Kind of Alaska (BAC); Blue Sky State (Mercury Colchester); Shadowmouth (Sheffield Crucible); Men Should Weep, After the Dance (OSC); The Firework Maker’s Daughter (Told by an Idiot/Lyric Hammersmith); The Pull of Negative Gravity (Mercury Colchester, Traverse Edinburgh and New York), Singer (Tricycle); Present Laughter (Theatre Royal Bath Tour); Who Goes There? (Dreamthinkspeak); East is East (Leicester Haymarket); Romeo and Juliet (Wolsey Ipswich).

Television includes: Spooks, Wallander, Casualty, EastEnders, Waking the Dead, Innocents, Grange Hill.

Freddie Capper – Fritz Wendel

As Director: There’s Magic in the Web and Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare’s Globe).

Trained at LAMDA. Theatre includes: Great Expectations (National Tour), Waiting For Lefty, The Man Outside (Theatre Royal Haymarket), Terminal Ward (Canal Cafe), The Passenger (The Gallery, Mayfair), Much Ado About Nothing (Sam Wannamaker Festival, Shakespeare’s Globe), Orphans, The Libertine, A Going Concern, Guys And Dolls (LAMDA).

Television: Behind Bars (Only Water Productions).

Rebecca Humphries – Sally Bowles Theatre Includes: The Kitchen (National), The 24 hour Plays (Old Vic), Terminal Ward (Canal Cafe), Little Shop of Horrors (Maddermarket), Orphans, Guys and Dolls, A Midsummer Nights Dream, The Seagull (LAMDA).

Television: Big Bad World (Objective), Cardinal Burns (Left Bank), Come Fly With Me (BBC).

Film: Felicity (short). Rebecca is soon to appear as Beth (regular) in Big Bad World, a new 8 part series for Comedy Central.

Sophie Dickson – Natalia Landauer

Oliver Rix – Clive Mortimer Oliver trained at LAMDA. Upon graduating he played Cardenio in Cardenio for Gregory Doran at the Royal Shakespeare Company (2011).

Sophie trained at LAMDA Theatre includes: Ursa Major, Arcadia, Dancing at Lughnasa, Cabaret, Coriolanus, A Prayer for Owen Meany.

Sherry Baines – Mrs. Watson-Courtneidge London theatre includes Round the Horne…Revisited, Angela Carter’s Cinderella (Improbable Theatre/Lyric, Hammersmith), Beauty and the Beast (Young Vic), Agamemnon’s Children (The Gate). Sherry worked for 18 months with Alan Ayckbourn at Scarborough and on tour, appearing in the 25th anniversary production of Bedroom Farce and Callisto 7. She toured with Hull Truck, in the original productions of Shakers, Cramp, Cut and Dried and Departures. Rep includes Theatr Clwyd, Liverpool Everyman, Manchester Library, Derby Playhouse, York Theatre Royal.

Film: Tony Palmer’s Testimony and Dogflap.

TV :Doctors, Casualty, EastEnders, A Touch of Frost, William and Mary, As Time Goes By, Touch and Go, Bloomin’ Marvellous, Made In Heaven.

Photographs - Nicolai Kornum

Creative Credits Anthony Lau – Director Anthony trained as a director at LAMDA. Directing includes: Everybody Happy (Waterloo East Theatre); There Are Two of Me (New Diorama Theatre); Work in Progress and Care (LAMDA); Orphans and The Wedding Present (Linbury Studio); The Spanish Tragedy, Stitching, Love Song and The Passenger (The Gallery, Mayfair); Tape (CounterCulture); Slot Machine (MacOwan Theatre); Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me, After Miss Julie and The Fall of the House of Usher (New Theatre) and Gypsy Blood at the Actors’ Studio, Holland.

Assistant Directing includes: Canvas (Angus Jackson, Minerva Theatre; Chichester Festival Theatre), Bingo (Angus Jackson, The Young Vic), Taking Steps (Peter James, Old Laundry Theatre), Hungry Ghosts (Tim Luscombe, Orange Tree Theatre), The York Realist (Colin Cook, MacOwan Theatre), A Going Concern (Penny Cherns, Linbury Studio), Love and Money (Stephen Jameson, Linbury Studio), A Russian in the Woods (John Baxter, MacOwan Theatre), A Comedy of Errors (James Kerr, LAMDA) and a Paris Tour of An Inspector Calls (Jo Blatchley, Various).

Becky Catlin – Assistant Director Directing Includes: The Infant (Vivian Cox Theatre, Cranleigh), Bluebird (NSDF 2011), Hand and Heart (The Hand and Heart Gallery, Nottingham), The Retreat (Edinburgh Fringe 2010) and Fresher The Musical, Smile, Bluebird, The Winterling, The Country and Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat, all for The Nottingham New Theatre.

Assistant Directing Includes: An Incident at the Border (Finborough Theatre & Trafalgar Studios), Seizing Cinderella (HighTide Festival 2012), Roots (Colchester Mercury Theatre, Stoke New Vic, Hull Truck, Nottingham Playhouse), Inside Out of Mind (Nottingham Playhouse).

James Turner – Designer James trained on the Motley Theatre Design Course is currently working as an assistant to Ultz on designs for The Royal Opera House, Young Vic and Royal Court. Designs include: Strong Arm (Underbelly, Edinburgh), The Ripple Effect, (Richmond Theatre), The Sluts of Sutton Drive (Finborough), Mercury Fur (Trafalgar Studios and Old Red Lion – Off-West-End Award Nomination – Best Set Design), All Good Men (Finborough), Execution of Justice (Southwark Playhouse), Oh What a Lovely War and Much Ado About Nothing (British American Drama Academy), Thrill Me - The Leopold and Loeb Story (Charring Cross Theatre), Plain Jane (Royal Exchange Studio, Manchester) That Moment (Underbelly, Edinburgh), Some Stories (Templeworks, Leeds), Over the Moon (New Wimbledon Studio), No Wonder (Library Theatre, Manchester) and A Man of No Importance (Union Theatre and Arts Theatre, Leicester Sq.).

James was the runner-up designer of the JMK award 2012. www.jamesturnerdesign.com Helen Dale Richardson – Design Assistant Trained at Wimbledon College of Art where she studied Design for Performance. Having recently completed a job as a runner for the Globe to Globe Olympics team, she is currently undertaking a Production Internship at The Finborough Theatre. Theatre includes: Gulch (Battersea Arts Centre), Dash Dash Dash (Battersea Arts Centre), Azincourt (WCA Theatre), Exits are here, here and down (The Place,) The Sluts of Sutton Drive (Finborough Theatre).

Nicolai Kornum – Lighting Designer/Photographer Trained at London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art, and European Film College. www.nicolaikornum.com

Sarah Booth – Costume Designer Sarah Booth trained on the Motley Theatre Design Course 2010-2011. Sarah is an associate designer for Iris Theatre at the St. Paul’s Church. She designs events for Adam Street private members club and has made puppets for Thames Festival Carnival. Credits include: Defining Moments of Truth and Deception, dir. Steve Woodward, Soho Theatre; She Stoops to Conquer, dir. Lydia Milman Schmidt, Orchard Dene Gardens; A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Benjamin Britten, dir.Cecil Hayter, St Peter’s Church, Grange Park; Dracula, dir. Harry Williams, Catford Broadway Theatre; Love and War, dir. Lydia Milman Schmidt, Ye Olde Rose and Crown and Union Theatre; Wind in the Willows, dir. Dan Winder, St Paul’s church, Covent Garden; L’Enfant et les Sortilege + O’ Saci (double bill) dir. Alexander Medem, St Paul’s church.

Susan Ellicott – Stage Manager Susan trained at LAMDA. Theatre Includes: ASM South Pacific (Barbican and No.1 UK Tour), SM The Acid Test (Royal Court Theatre), SM Fen (Finborough Theatre), ASM Childsplay (Normand Park), SM The Hate Play/The Buzz (Box Clever Theatre).

Events Include: SM Team New Year’s Parade (Destination Events), ASM Anthems: The Concert Royal Albert Hall (Kenny Wax Ltd), Production Runner Les Miserables In Concert: The 25th Anniversary O2 Arena (Cameron Mackintosh Ltd), Production Runner Alternative Hair Show Royal Albert Hall.

Television Includes: Production Runner The Friday Night Project (Princess Productions).

Sophie Goody – Assistant Stage Manager Sophie has a degree from Edinburgh University in Classical Studies but her love of theatre has led her to pursue a career in Stage Management. Work includes: The Alchemist (Upstairs at The Gatehouse), Events Whie Guarding The Bofors Gun (Finborough Theatre), Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland And Fantastic Mr Fox (Little Angel Puppet Theatre) and Plucker (Southwark Playhouse).

Folie à deux Productions Folie à deux Productions was founded in 2011 by Curran McKay and Susan Ellicott. It’s first production, Summer and Smoke was performed at Southwark Playhouse in 2012 and received two Off-West End Award nominations with Libby Purves calling it an ‘unforgettable, absorbing production’ and ‘a jewel of the London fringe.’

Paulden Hall Productions Paulden Hall Productions was founded in 2009 by Matt Leventhall and Adam Paulden.

The company achieved its first major success with Fresher the Musical, which premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2010, winning the MTM/Whatsonstage.com award for Best New Musical.

The show is now licensed to amateur groups across the globe, including a recent sell-out production in Canada.

Further credits include I Am a Camera (Southwark Playhouse), Wild West End (Pleasance London and Edinburgh), The Songs of My Life (Garrick Theatre, West End), Plug In The Lead (Leicester Square Theatre), Mash-Up Cabaret (Leicester Square Theatre), In Town With Motown (Freedom).

The company is currently producing the pilot for a new comedy-drama, “Aunties”, which will be shot in late September.

Band Credits Angus MacRae – Composer/Musical Director/Piano Graduating in 2011 with a BA Hons in Music from the University of Nottingham, Angus MacRae’s diverse work for theatre includes original music for over 15 productions, including Joseph K (Linbury Studio, London), Out of Nowhere (Yvonne Arnaud, Guildford), Only One Wing (Edinburgh Fringe) and After the End (New Theatre, Nottingham). As musical director, work includes The Pillowman (New Theatre) and Teechers (George IV, Chiswick). Alongside this, Angus has worked on an eclectic mix of short films, and regularly writes concert repertoire, with work recently performed at the Djanogly Recital Hall (Nottingham) and The Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall (London).”

Ed Waters – Double Bass Ed started with learning the cello in 2001 and later the double bass in 2006. He has played with many orchestras, being principle double bass with the Luton Youth Orchestra, Luton String Orchestra, Harrow Young Musicians’ Philharmonic Orchestra and Hillingdon Philharmonic. He has also played with the Luton Symphony Orchestra, Luton Concert Orchestra, Aylesbury Symphony Orchestra, in a wide range of venues such as St John’s Smith Square, Cadogan Hall, Birmingham Symphony Hall, touring Paris and northern Italy.

Playing in productions of Anything Goes and Sweet Charity and performing at Cafe Oto. He graduated from Brunel University in 2011 with a BA in Music and is planning on studying for an MA in Composition.

Samuel Thompson – Clarinet Sam is a recent graduate of RWCMD and writes music for film and theatre.

As a player Sam has toured Europe and played at many of Britain’s premier music venues including The Royal Albert Hall. He has also played under the baton of Adrian Partington and the late Sir Charles Mackerras.

He has recently been commissioned to write music for three short films, alongside Luc Morris, for Gingenious. Other recent projects include orchestrating The People The Poets new album and working as an assistant to Ben Foster.

Press - Kevin Wilson Public Relations tel: 07884 368697 Voice Coach - Paul Hill tel: 07932 328791 Make-up Artist - Ria Biggerstaff tel: 07947 393602 email: riabeauty@hotmail.co.uk

Isherwood’s inspiration: the real Sally Bowles Nineteen-year-old actress Jean Ross was working as a nightclub singer in Weimar Germany in 1931 when she shared digs with Christopher Isherwood, becoming immortalized as the “divinely decadent” Sally Bowles in Isherwood’s 1939 memoirs Goodbye to Berlin. She has been played by Julie Harris, in the 1955 film version of I Am a Camera, Judi Dench, in the original 1968 West End stage version of Cabaret, and, of course, Liza Minnelli, in Bob Fosse’s 1972 film of the same.

Unlike the apolitical Bowles, insouciant about the rise of the Nazis, Ross was a lifelong communist – and possibly, it has been suggested, an undercover agent for the Comintern, the international wing of Soviet communism. According to Ross’s daughter, the pipe-smoking barrister and crime writer Sarah Caudwell, she never liked her identification with Sally Bowles, thinking it was more closely modeled on Isherwood’s flamboyant male friends. Ross was a more talented actress than Bowles (Max Reinhardt cast her in Peer Gynt) as well as a writer good enough to earn a living writing for films and newspapers (under the pseudonym ‘Peter Porcupine’). Her later life is shrouded in obscurity, but she died in Richmond, Surrey, in 1973, aged 62.

Special Thanks To: LAMDA Peter Jamieson – Watford Palace Theatre Nicky Holderness – National Theatre The Last Refuge Ben Dilloway Sophie McLelland Anthony Mulcrone – Honeyrose Claire Bryan – Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith Cadogan Hall Taiwo Omisore, Community Champion – Tesco, Southwark Bob, Gina and Seonaid Goody

‘Southwark Playhouse’s brand is as quirky as it is classy’ The Stage Southwark Playhouse Theatre Company was founded in 1993 by Juliet Alderdice, Tom Wilson and Mehmet Ergen. They identified the need for a high quality accessible theatre which would provide opportunities for the best emerging companies and practitioners, and also act as a major resource for the local community.

They leased a disused workshop in a then comparatively neglected part of Southwark and turned it into a flexible theatre space.

The theatre quickly put down strong roots in Southwark, developing an innovative, free at source, education programme. It has worked closely with teachers, Southwark Borough Council, businesses and government agencies to improve educational achievement and raise aspirations. This programme is in great demand and attracts substantial funding each year.

Over the past fifteen years the theatre has established itself as one of London’s leading studio theatres, representing high quality work by new and emerging theatre practitioners.

In 2007 it moved to its current premises in vaults beneath Platform 1 of London Bridge Station where itis home to a 150-seat studio theatre and a brand new secondary performance space, The Vault, which now serves as a platform for developing and nurturing cutting edge theatre.

Under successive talented artistic directors, Mehmet Ergen (now Artistic Director of the Arcola Theatre), Erica Whyman (now Artistic Director of the Northern Stage Company), Thea Sharrock (recently directed After the Dance at the National Theatre and Cause Célèbre at the Old Vic), Gareth Machin (now Artistic Director of Salisbury Playhouse) and Ellie Jones, Southwark Playhouse has become an indispensable part of theatre in London.

2011 marked the start of Chris Smyrnios’ tenure as Artistic Director and an exciting programme of work that included Philip Ridley’s first world premiere in three years, Tender Napalm, a major revival of Hannah Cowley’s The Belle’s Stratagem and the critically acclaimed Parade and Bound, both of which received five star reviews in the Evening Standard. The year culminated with Southwark Playhouse being the recipient of the Peter Brook Empty Space Award 2011 with Fiona Mountford praising the ‘high-energy, life-giving spirit’ of the theatre.

2012 is Southwark Playhouse’s last year in its current home before it relocates to temporary premises to make way for the redevelopment of London Bridge Station.

For more information about our forthcoming season and to book tickets visit www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk. You can also support us online by joining our Facebook and Twitter pages.

Staff List Patrons Sir Michael Caine, Peter Gill OBE, Simon Hughes MP, Andy Serkis Board of Trustees Sarah Hickson, Kathleen Miles, Kathryn Serkis, Adam Valkin, Glenn Wellman, Tim Wood Artistic Director - Chris Smyrnios General Manager - Alys Mayer Press and Marketing Manager - Susie Safavi Technical Manager - Richard Seary Front of House and Bar Manager - Mark Bromley Schools Programme Manager - Stewart Melton Young Company Co-Ordinator - Paul Edwards Duty Managers - Nathan Palmer, Emma Broomfield Associate Directors - David Mercatali, Jessica Swale Associate Producer - Jethro Compton

Prairie Oyster Ingredients 1 raw egg 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce salt pepper Crack the egg into a glass, leaving the yolk unbroken. Douse it with Worcestershire sauce, a sprinkling of salt and pepper.

Programme design - Mark Bromley www.markbromley.net