THE MEMORANDUM
BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS: The Memorandum
Communicado in association with Perth Theatre present
The Memorandum by Vaclav Havel
Biographies
Director: Gerda Stevenson
Gerda Stevenson trained at R.A.D.A., London. She has worked for 30 years on stage, television, radio and film throughout Britain and abroad.
She received a BAFTA Best Film Actress Award for her performance in Margaret Tait’s feature film BLUE BLACK PERMANENT (co-starring with Celia Imrie and Jack Shepherd),appeared in BRAVEHEART, as the mother of Murren, and played a leading role (Anne Muir) in THE BOYHOOD OF JOHN MUIR, an American film for PBS TV.
In 2003 she was heard on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour drama serial, playing the heroine Laura in her own 10-part dramatisation of SELF-CONTROL, a novel by forgotten 18th Century Scottish writer Mary Brunton.
Her third dramatisation for BBC Radio 4 – THE GOWK STORM by Nancy Brysson Morrison (another little known classic Scottish novel) was broadcast in 2005.
She recently appeared with John Nettles in a leading role in ITV’s MIDSOMER MURDERS, and is appearing in the current TV series HEARTBEAT.
In winter 2005, she will direct a large-scale community drama, THE PENTLANDS AT WAR, commemorating 60 years since the end of the Second World War.
In January 2006, she will direct THE MEMORANDUM, by Vaclav Havel, a co-production between Communicado and Perth Theatre.
Gerda was the founder of Stellar Quines Theatre Company, and is Associate Director
of Communicado. She has directed productions in theatre, opera, film, and radio.
Biographies
Actor: Gerry Mulgrew
Born in Glasgow, Gerry attended University of Glasgow before moving on to Aberdeen College of Education and the Sorbonne in Paris. Gerry is a co-founder of Communicado setting up the company in 1983 and becoming Artistic Director in 1986. Since then he has been an actor, director and writer with the company as well as taking on freelance theatrical projects.
Gerry has directed over 30 pieces with the company including the award winning House with the Green Shutters, Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off, Jock Tamson’s Bairns and recently touring productions of Brave and Zlata’s Diary. Gerry has also directed for the RSC, Royal Lyceum, Benchtours, Dundee Rep and The Traverse.
As an actor he has appeared many times in Communicado productions. Recently he has been performing at Dundee Rep. playing Freddy in THE VISIT and Dad Ubu in UBU THE KING.
Biographies
Writer: Václav Havel
Václav Havel was born into a well-to-do family in Prague. His father owned Prague's cliff-top Barrandov suburb and his mother, Bozena Havlova, the daughter of an ambassador and journalist, encouraged her son's intellectual and artistic ambitions. In his youth he formed a literary circle called Thirty-Sixers, after the year of its members' birth.
In the 1960s Havel made his way in the theater, first as a stagehand, and then becoming resident writer for the Prague "Theatre on the Balustrade" from 1960 to 1969. During this time he continued his education at the Prague Academy of Art. His first play as the dramatic consultant of the theater Na Zábradlí, The Garden Party (1963), was a satire of modern bureaucratic routines. It was a success both at home and abroad.
As a playwright Havel has used dramatic techniques to make situations or characters seem ridiculous. In The Memorandum (1965) he introduced an artificial language that is supposed to allow for greater precision in communication. The absurd attempt results in a complete breakdown of human relationships. In the 1960s Havel satirized communist bureaucracy and supported the Prague Spring reform movement of 1968.
Havel's plays did much to bring world attention to the Czechoslovakian struggle. Throughout this period he was subjected to police harassment and arrests. In 1979 he was sentenced to four and a half years imprisonment for subversion of the republic.
In the 1980s Havel became the undisputed unofficial leader of the Czechoslovak human rights movement. In November 1989 he formed a new opposition group, Civic Forum. Following the fall of communism, Alexander Dubcek (1921-92), who had launched a series of reforms in 1968 and was subsequently expelled from the Presidium, was elected chairman of the parliament. Havel was elected in 1989 by direct popular vote as president of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, following Gustav Husák.
When the Czech Republic was created he stood for election as president there on January 26th, 1993 and won. Despite illness and three operations he was re-elected in 1998. Václav Havel left office after his second term as Czech president ended on February 2nd 2003.
(Adapted biography from http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/vhavel.htm)
For all media enquires please contact Owen O’Leary on 07815 992658 • email owen@ohreally.co.uk
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