Productions:

• Randolph Pre-College, May 2019

• Toronto Fringe Festival, Edge of the Sky Theatre, July 2019

Casting information:

• 12-16 speaking roles, ages 15-20

• The role of “Deirdre” may be shared by 1, 3 or 4 female leads

• Orchestrated for leads+ ensemble voices

BE KIND, REWIND

By Suzy Wilde and Barbara Johnston

Synopsis:

Judy Blume meets High Fidelity in this funny and heart-warming coming-of-age story written by childhood friends and long-time collaborators Barbara Johnston and Suzy Wilde. When fifteen-year-old Deirdre and her younger sister Dawn are sent to live with their cousins in Tortoiseshell Lake in the summer of 1995, Deirdre gets a job at the local video store where she finds her voice and falls in love with movies.

Creation:

This piece was originally commissioned in 2018 by Randolph Performing Arts for their pre-college program - a group of about 25 young actors. In order to accommodate the large cast and to give opportunities to multiple talented young people, Wilde and Johnston created a the principle role, 15-year-old Deirdre Morris, with the idea that she would be played by four people. The group- all dressed in the same yellow stripes- would rotate from scene-to-scene, and the result was a compelling multi-layered portrayal of a single character. Following a small run at the Annex Theatre in May 2019, Wilde and Johnston mounted a second draft with Edge of the Sky Theatre in the 2019 Fringe Festival that same year. The “four Deirdre” concept had worked so well that the same device was used for the second production.

FEATURED SONGS: