March 14, 2022 – The 2021/22 reIGNITE Live Arts Season continues with Lucy Kirkwood’s provocative and chilling eco-thriller THE CHILDREN. After postponing production during the truncated 2019/20 Season, Live Arts is tremendously excited to share THE CHILDREN with Charlottesville audiences in a Central Virginia premiere. The production is presented by George Worthington and Cameron Mowat, and sponsored by Tim McNamara and Timothy Read, Attorney at Law. THE CHILDREN will have 16 performances in the Founders Theater, April 15 through May 7, 2022, at Live Arts Theater, 123 East Water Street, Charlottesville. Tickets are $25 for adults or $20 for students and senior citizens. Tickets are available starting March 15 through the Box Office at 434-977-4177 or online at livearts.org/tix.
Live Arts will host two special events for THE CHILDREN: An opening night reception and champagne toast will follow the performance on Friday, April 15, and a post-show audience talkback will be held on Thursday, April 28 immediately following the show. Audience members are welcome to enjoy drinks and concessions at the third floor Becker Bar for one hour before and after the show.
About the Show
“An astonishment … bristling with chills and suspense.” – The New York Times
Named one of the greatest theatrical works since 2000 by The Guardian, THE CHILDREN is set in an all-too-recognizable future. Two retired nuclear scientists, Hazel and Robin, have been trying to sustain a normal life in an isolated English coastal cottage, even though they’re living only a few miles outside an environmental disaster “exclusion zone.” Former colleague Rose has suddenly reappeared, uninvited, after 38 years. As the drama unspools, the audience learns of their intertwined past, and the shocking reason for Rose’s visit. Lucy Kirkwood’s pressure-cooker of a play demands that we consider our generational and social responsibilities, and the reparations we may owe to those who follow.
The Live Arts production of THE CHILDREN is directed by longtime Live Arts volunteer Betsy Rudelich Tucker, and features three powerhouse performers: Kat Maybury as Hazel, Jane McDonald as Rose, and David Minton as Robin. The production also boasts a creative team with impressive local credits: Will Kerner (producer); Liesel A. Robinson (assistant director and dialect coach); Rain Eguiguren (production stage manager); Kerry Moran (scenic designer); Joshua Reid (lighting designer); John Holdren (sound designer); Amy Goffman (costume designer); Leena Rose Miller (properties designer); and Colleen Kelly (choreographer).
“This play presents us with brilliantly written, engaging characters. As their relationships are revealed and the plot spirals toward its conclusion, it engages us in our personal and our society’s needs to change, and our resistance to change, even in the face of the chaos we’ve created,” says director Tucker. “[THE CHILDREN] has felt like a production Live Arts must do—and you must see—since I first encountered it five years ago.”
Performance History and Playwright
THE CHILDREN was commissioned by the Royal Court Theatre, premiered at the Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Downstairs in 2016, and opened on Broadway in 2017.
Lucy Kirkwood is an acclaimed playwright and screenwriter. Her play It Felt Empty When the Heart Went at First But It Is Alright Now, produced by Clean Break Theatre Company at the Arcola Theatre in 2009, was nominated for an Evening Standard Award for Best Newcomer, with the playwright named joint winner of the 2010 John Whiting Award. Other works include: NSFW (premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, 2012); Chimerica (premiered at the Almeida Theatre, 2013, transferred to the West End, earning Best New Play at the 2014 Olivier and Evening Standard Awards, Critics Circle Award and the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize); Mosquitoes (opened at the National Theatre, London, in summer 2017 in special arrangement with Manhattan Theatre Club); and THE CHILDREN. Kirkwood’s film and TV credits include Skins, The Smoke, The Briny, and four-part series Adult Material.
About the Director
Betsy Rudelich Tucker has been a volunteer at Live Arts for 20 years where she has directed more than a dozen shows, most recently TOP GIRLS and THE OTHER PLACE. She has served on the Board, costumed, painted, designed props, and co-produced the Fat Tuesday Fête fundraiser. Retired from teaching and directing at UVA’s Drama Department, she walks and swims and travels and works on visual art.
