Look Back in Anger

Ferndale Repertory Theatre Presents:
LOOK Back In Anger by John Osborne.
Directed by John Heckel
Cast
Ethan Edmonds as Jimmy Porter
Greta Stockwell as Alison Porter
Charlie Heinberg as Cliff
Tisha Sloan as Helena
Bob Morse as the Colonel Redfern
Crew
Ned Daniel - Technical Director
April Grenot - Scenic \& Costume Design
Jeremy Webb - Stage Manager
Set Construction - Ben McBride, Andy Coutan
Producer - Ginger Gene
The press release for 26-year-old John Osborne's first produced play, called the dramatist "an angry young man." After the stunning success of the play, the term "Angry Young Man" became the label for a generation of Englishmen born before World War II but who came to maturity after the defeat of Nazi Germany, when the sun that was the British Empire was sinking into the sunset.
Look Back in Anger opened on May 8, 1956 at the Royal Court Theatre, the 11th anniversary of V-E Day (the surrender of Germany and the cessation of hostilities in the European theater of World War II). So seminal an event was Look Back in Anger, the American drama critic Clive Barnes dated Mary 8, 1956 as the "actual birthday...of modern British theatre." The play was revolutionary, as it gave voice to the working class and was a slap in the face of the gentility that characterized the English theater of the time. Osborne represents a transition figure in the history of the post-World War II British stage, between Terrence Rattigan and Nobel Prize-winner Harold Pinter.
A press agent came up with the phrase "Angry Young Man" that would stick to Osborne and his compatriots, who created a new type of theater rooted in the dramas of Bertolt Brecht and which displayed a working class consciousness. Though Look Back in Anger initially received mixed reviews, the play was a smash in London, and it soon made the transfer to Broadway, where it ran for a year. Look Back in Anger was nominated for a 1958 Tony Award for Best Play (with the nomination citing Osborne and producer David Merrick), Best Actress in a Play (Mary Ure, whom became Osborne's second wife), and Best Costume Design (The Motley). It eventually was made into a movie in 1959 starring Richard Burton and directed by Tony Richardson.