Playing from the Heart

Playing from the Heart is a play about the childhood of the world famous percussionist Evelyn Glennie. It’s a gritty yet poetic piece which tells how Evelyn became a musician despite becoming profoundly deaf between eight and twelve years old. The realistic narrative is linked by a series of imaginative set pieces, which explore the inner world of the deaf child. The play explores themes of family love, overcoming impossible barriers and the very nature of art/music. It also provides a rich mix of movement, music and text.

Regular price $12.00

Quick Details

  • Type: Play
  • Length: 75 minutes | Can be cut for competition
  • Availability: Available for productions in the United States and Canada
  • Cast Size: 15 roles | Originally performed with a cast of 5

Full Details

Roles:

  • Evelyn
  • Mum
  • Dad
  • Colin
  • Roger
  • Reporter
  • Photographer
  • Editor
  • Teacher
  • Doctors 1 & 2
  • Careers Officer
  • Woman
  • Floss, the dog

The following resources are included in each performance license:
  • Permission to photocopy the PDF script for your production so there is no additional cost for these assets.

The following resources may be added to you license for an additional fee:
  • Logo/Media package

Charles Way

Charles began writing plays professionally in 1978 when he joined Leeds Playhouse TIE team. He has now written over forty plays, many of them for young people, and his work has been produced all over the world. These include Sleeping BeautyThe Search for Odysseus and A Spell of Cold Weather - which were all nominated as Best Children's Play by the Writer's Guild of Great Britain. He has recently published his 'Classic fairytales, retold for the stage' which includes Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast, which were specially commissioned by The Library Theatre Manchester. His play about the percussionist Evelyn Glennie, which was first produced at the Polka Theatre for Children, was nominated as Best Children's Show by the TMA. Other plays include The FloodRed Red ShoesOne Snowy Night The Tinderbox and The Night Before Christmas. . He was recently commissioned by the National Theatre to write Alice in the News, which children all over Britain have performed. Charles has won several awards and was last years recipient of the 'Children's award' given by the Arts Council of England for 'Red Red Shoes' as best play for young people 2004. His play 'Merlin and the Cave of Dreams', for Imagination Stage, was nominated for a Helen Hayes award for the 'Outstanding New Play of 2004'.

Charles' plays for adults include a well-known version of Bruce Chatwin's On the Black Hill and an adaptation of Independent People by Halldor Laxness. In Wales he has had long associations with Gwent Theatre, The Sherman theatre and Hijinx Theatre, for whom he has written' In the Bleak Midwinter, and Ill Met by Moonlight, both set on the welsh borders. Recent new plays include, Still life, about genetic science for The Plymouth Theatre Royal; The Long Way Home, for New Perspectives Theatre in collaboration with the CIAO festival, which has been performed in Croatia and The Dutiful Daughter which has been performed in China. Charles has written many plays for radio, and a TV poem for BBC2, No Borders, set on the Welsh borders, where he lives and has spent most of his creative life.

Originally produced by Polka Theatre, UK in 1998

Nominated for TMA Best Children’s Play Award.

Reviews

Way’s script – which has a seductive, memior-style tone, no doubt because it was written with Glennie’s cooperation – chronicles the vulnerable young dreamer’s enthusiasms and setbacks…It’s ultra-inspiring stuff, but Way avoids any power-of-positive-thinking triteness by anchoring the story firmly in a sense of artistic wonder.

- The Washington Post

If it’s Charles Way’s innovative and inspirational Playing from the Heart, you get an absorbing and evocative biographical drama about a young woman both from and of the sticks who proved them all wrong to become the premiere percussion artist of her generation.

- DC Theatre Scene