To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday
This play is available below and is also included in the collection:
Price range: $15.00 through $15.95
Description
A grieving widower must accept his wife's death to save himself and his relationship with his daughter. David loves his wife, Gillian. Unfortunately, she died two years ago. David deals with his grief by continuing his romance with her “ghost” during walks on the beach at night. While David lives in the past, other family problems crop up in the present. Brother and sister-in-law Paul and Esther visit to try to help David's daughter, Rachel. She has lost her mother and needs her father to snap back into the real world for her sake.
Production Info
Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
Press Quotes
“… Though TO GILLIAN begins as a simple dramatization of its hero’s obsessive mourning, it gradually expands to become a richer form of family drama … [Mr Brady] writes with a rueful sophistication that keeps his story’s sentimentality at bay … TO GILLIAN is peppered with sharp, evenhanded observations about the tenuous ties that connect husbands and wives and parents and children … if TO GILLIAN is a play that sends a ghost flying out of [the] heavens, its appeal derives from its author’s keen sensitivity to life down here on earth.” —Frank Rich, The New York Times
“This first major work by Michael Brady has well-dimensioned characters, solid conflict, piquant writing and gives off a warm, affirmative glow … When it has become not uncommon to encounter plays with no sympathetic characters, audiences will respond affectionately to everyone In GILLIAN. Working on a small canvas, the author is in impressive control of his material …” —Richard Hummler, Variety
Author
Michael BradyMichael created Berkshire Voices, Great Barrington Public Theater's ongoing workshop for Berkshire area playwrights. His play REUNION marked the 2025 launch of Stepping Up: Plays in Development, the theater's program of staged readings. Also with Great Barrington Public: readings of THE GROUP and QUEEN OF THE SEA. Barrington Stage Company's 10x10 New Play Festival produced his plays PIPELINE and IF I GO FIRST. Other stage works include TO GILLIAN ON HER 37TH BIRTHDAY, developed by Ensemble Studio Theatre and produced as a film by Sony Pictures; SARA, Equity Library Theatre at Lincoln Center; SEMPER FI, Gloucester Stage Company, HARD TIMES, Main Street Stage, North Adams; and TWO BEARS BLINKING, New Theatre, Miami. Michael is a member of the Dramatists Guild and the Ensemble Studio Theatre. His published works are available from Broadway Play Publishing.
Book Information
| Publisher | BPPI |
|---|---|
| Publication Date | 8/15/2011 |
| Pages | 74 |
| ISBN | 9780881454918 |
Special Notes
Opened at Ensemble Studio Theater, New York, then moved to a commercial run Off-Broadway at Circle In the Square
by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
www.broadwayplaypublishing.com
