Origin
Sign In My Cart
Search
alphabetical author index
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Red Velvet

"Red Velvet is the play to see. A superb ensemble directed by Indhu Rubasingham from Lolita Chakrabarti's excellent script. The audience was clearly awestruck."

The Huffington Post

"Frankly, thrilling. [Red Velvet] burns the place down."

Time Out New York

More information

Description

  • Full Length Play
  • Drama
  • 120 minutes

  • Time Period: 19th Century
  • Target Audience: Teen (Age 14 - 18), Adult
  • Set Requirements: Interior Set, Bare Stage/Simple Set
  • Cautions: Mild Adult Themes

  • Performance Group:
  • Large Stage, Community Theatre, Professional Theatre, Reader's Theatre, Blackbox / Second Stage /Fringe Groups, College Theatre / Student

  • Accolades:
  • Winner! Most Promising Playwright - Lolita Chakrabarti - Evening Standard Award & Critics' Cricle Award
It's like being at a crossroads - a point of absolute, unequivocal change. It makes the blood rush.

Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, 1833. Edmund Kean, the greatest actor of his generation, has collapsed on stage whilst playing Othello. A young black American actor has been asked to take over the role. But as the public riot in the streets over the abolition of slavery, how will the cast, critics and audience react to the revolution taking place in the theatre?

Lolita Chakrabarti's play creates imagined experiences based on the little-known, but true, story of Ira Aldridge, an African-American actor who, in the nineteenth century, built an incredible reputation on the stages of London and Europe.

Red Velvet received its world premiere at the Tricycle Theatre, London, on 11 October 2012, starring Adrian Lester as Ira Aldridge. It was revived at the Tricycle Theatre on 23 January 2014, before transferring to St Ann's Warehouse, New York, on 25 March 2014.
REVIEWS:

"Shock waves rarely travel across centuries. But at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, where Lolita Chakrabarti's Red Velvet opened on Monday night, you can experience firsthand what it must have felt like to be part of one seriously rattled London theater audience in 1833."

 The New York Times

"Red Velvet is the play to see. A superb ensemble directed by Indhu Rubasingham from Lolita Chakrabarti's excellent script. The audience was clearly awestruck."

 The Huffington Post

"Frankly, thrilling. [Red Velvet] burns the place down."

 Time Out New York

"...the best new play of the 2013-14 season."

 Showbiz 411

"It's a cracker of a play: gripping, intelligent and passionate."

 Financial Times

Premiere Production: Red Velvet premiered at the Tricycle Theatre in London in 2012, under the direction of Indhu Rubasingham.

Characters

  • Casting: 5M, 3F
  • Casting Attributes: Reduced casting (Doubling Possible), Minority casting, Flexible casting, Expandable casting, Strong Role for Leading Man (Star Vehicle)
  • Casting Notes: In UK & US premieres of Red Velvet, the role of Ira Aldridge (at age 26 & 60) were played by the same actor; however, the play can also work with two actors playing Aldridge at these differing points in his life.

    Suggested doubling: Casimir / Henry Forester
    Halina Wozniak / Betty Lovell / Margaret Aldridge
    Terence / Bernard Warde
    Ira Aldridge (age 26) / Ira Aldridge (age 60)

  • CASIMIR - White male, 20's, German speaking Polish stage-hand. Inexperienced, low status and likes Halina.

  • HALINA WOZNIAK - White female, 20's. Polish journalist. Bright, ambitious, frustrated with her life.

  • TERENCE - White male, 50's, English. Ira Aldridge's valet and dresser. Loyal, hard working.

  • IRA ALDRIDGE - Black male, 60, American, a leading actor. Grand, impatient, ferocious and unwell.

  • CONNIE - Jamaican female, any age, experienced, servant. Older than her years and the voice of truth.

  • BETTY LOVELL - White female, 20's, English, actress. Self concerned, not clever but pleasant.

  • HENRY FORESTER - White male, 20's, English actor. Political, self-interested, ambitious and earnest.

  • BERNARD WARDE - White male, 50's, English, actor. Old school, a bit lazy, opinionated and insecure.

  • CHARLES KEAN - White male, 30's. English, actor (son of Edmund Kean). Grand but without the talent to support it. Suffers from being Edmund's son.

  • ELLEN TREE - White female, late 20's, English, a leading actress. Talented, motivated, classical but progressive.

  • PIERRE LAPORTE - White male, mid 30's, French, manager of the theatre. Gay, revolutionary, entrepreneurial.

  • IRA ALDRIDGE - Black male, 26, American, actor. Ambitious, keen, passionate and optimistic.

  • MARGARET ALDRIDGE - White female, 30's, English, wife of Ira Aldridge. Plain, solid, trustworthy, Ira's rock.



  • *Red Velvet is an imagined version of true events. Some of the characters are based on real people -- Ira Aldridge (1807-1867), Margaret Aldridge (1798-1864), Pierre Laporte (1799-1841), Charles Kean (1811-1868), Ellen Tree (1805-1880)

    • Available Material

    Name Price
    Red Velvet Script Order Now

    It's like being at a crossroads - a point of absolute, unequivocal change. It makes the blood rush.

    Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, 1833. Edmund Kean, the greatest actor of his generation, has collapsed on stage whilst playing Othello. A young black American actor has been asked to take over the role. But as the public riot in the streets over the abolition of slavery, how will the cast, critics and audience react to the revolution taking place in the theatre?

    Lolita Chakrabarti's play creates imagined experiences based on the little-known, but true, story of Ira Aldridge, an African-American actor who, in the nineteenth century, built an incredible reputation on the stages of London and Europe.

    Red Velvet received its world premiere at the Tricycle Theatre, London, on 11 October 2012, starring Adrian Lester as Ira Aldridge. It was revived at the Tricycle Theatre on 23 January 2014, before transferring to St Ann's Warehouse, New York, on 25 March 2014.

    		$24.95

    Related Works