'Blood Brothers' to open at Charter Arts High School - The Morning Call 'Blood Brothers' to open at Charter Arts High School Aria Sivick, Robert Stinner, Kristina D'Amico play the three narrators in Blood Brothers A musical that explores what happens when fraternal twins are separated at birth and raised in different social classes will be presented at Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts in Bethlehem. “Blood Brothers” by British playwright Willy Russell, who also wrote “Educating Rita” and “Shirley Valentine,” will be presented April 15-19 in the Charter Arts Black Box Theatre. The musical is loosely based on the 1844 novella, “The Corsican Brothers.” Twins Mickey and Eddie are raised by different families — one upper class and one lower class. Eddie goes to college and becomes a lawyer while Mickey loses his job and eventually goes to prison. Both fall in love with the same woman, which leads to tragic results. The production is directed and choreographed by Ashley Tait Weller and stars Albert Nelthropp as Mickey Johnstone and Brayden Nace as Edward Lyons, the separated twin. As their repsective mothers, Lynsey Jeffery is Mrs.

Johnstone and Kara Snyder is Mrs. Lyons. Robert Stinner, Aria Sivick and Kristina D’Amico serve as narrator. Musical Direction is by Lynn Flickinger and Neil Chaban, the 9-piece orchestra is conducted by Matt Wells, and technical direction and set design is by Peter Wrenn-Meleck. The 1993 Broadway production received six Tony Award nominations, including for best musical, and has developed a cult following. Popular songs from the show include “Tell Me It’s Not True” , “Easy Terms”, and “Marilyn Monroe.” “Blood Brothers,” 7 p.m. April 15-18 and 2 p.m. April 19, Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts, 675 E. Broad St., Bethlehem. Tickets: $15, adults; $10, students and seniors. Willy Russell (Author of Educating Rita) edit data William Russell is a British dramatist, lyricist, and composer. His best-known works are Educating Rita, Shirley Valentine, and Blood Brothers. Willy Russell was born in Whiston, on the outskirts of Liverpool, where he grew up.

His parents worked in a book publisher's and often encouraged him to read. After leaving school with one O-level in English, he first became a ladies' hairdresser and ran his own salon. Russell then undertook a variety of jobs, also the first play he wrote was Keep Your Eyes Down Low (1975). His first success was a play about The Beatles called John, Paul, George, Ringo … and Bert. Originally commissioned for the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool was transferring to the West End in 1974. Educating Rita (1980) concerned a fe William Russell is a British dramatist, lyricist, and composer. His best-known works are Educating Rita, Shirley Valentine, and Blood Brothers. Willy Russell was born in Whiston, on the outskirts of Liverpool, where he grew up. His parents worked in a book publisher's and often encouraged him to read. After leaving school with one O-level in English, he first became a ladies' hairdresser and ran his own salon. Russell then undertook a variety of jobs, also the first play he wrote was Keep Your Eyes Down Low (1975).

His first success was a play about The Beatles called John, Paul, George, Ringo … and Bert. Originally commissioned for the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool was transferring to the West End in 1974. Educating Rita (1980) concerned a female hairdresser and her Open University teacher. The semi-autobiographical Educating Rita was turned into a 1983 film with Michael Caine and Julie Walters. The musical Blood Brothers (1983), for which Russell also composed the music, first opened in Liverpool and transferred to London's Phoenix Theatre. It won the best actress award at the Lawrence Olivier awards. Bill Kenwright produced a revival in 1988 which has run for more than twenty years; the show was produced on Broadway in 1993. Shirley Valentine, which first opened in Liverpool in 1986 before a new production opened in London in 1988 starring Pauline Collins. It was also made into a successful film, in 1989, again with Collins in the title role. Russell received BAFTA and Oscar nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay for both Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine.

Russell has also written television projects, including the one-off drama, Our Day Out, which aired in 1977. He penned another television drama, One Summer, which aired as a five-part series on Channel 4 in 1983, starring a young David Morrissey. In 2000, Russell published his first novel, The Wrong Boy. In epistolary form, main character Raymond Marks, a 19-year old from Manchester, tells the story of his life in letters to his hero Morrissey. Russell has written songs since the early 1960s, and has written the music to most of his plays and musicals. He also co-wrote "The Show", the theme song to the 1985 ITV drama series Connie, which became a top 30 hit for vocalist Rebecca Storm. His first album, Hoovering the Moon, was released in 2003. The Willy Russell Centre for Children and Adults Who Stammer, was opened by Russell in Liverpool, 1996.

The centre took Russell's name as his writing in many of his plays puts forward the philosophy that anyone is capable of change whatever obstacles may be in their path, a theory shared by the centre. ...more World of Willy Russell, playwright and composer - Telegraph Theatre Features World of Willy Russell, playwright and composer The 62-year-old playwright discusses starting out, being mistaken for Alan Bleasdale and being nicknamed Woolly Rissole by Paul McCartney. Willy Russell at home in Liverpool. Photo: Christian Petersen The rhyming dictionary given to him in 1968. Photo: Christian Petersen His wooden cigarette box. Photo: Christian Petersen Paul McCartney's lyrics. Photo: Christian Petersen His first typewriter. Photo: Christian Petersen Follow Willy Russell, 62, is best known for Blood Brothers, Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine. One of the longest-running musicals in the West End, Blood Brothers won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical in 1983, and its 1988 production is still running. Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine were both awarded the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy, in 1980 and 1988 respectively.

Both plays were made into successful films, and are currently running as part of the Willy Russell season at Trafalgar Studios in London (until October 30). Our Day Out – The Musical, which first aired in 1977 as a television play, is at the Liverpool Royal Court Theatre from August 27 to October 9 (willyrussell.com). He lives in Liverpool with his wife, Annie. Morning routine I am usually up before 8am. Breakfast is a couple of slices of toast and Marmite with pumpkin seeds sprinkled on top. Pumpkin seeds are very good for the prostate – all men should eat them every day. Mostly I drive the six miles to my office in the centre of town, which is a Georgian house I started renting in 1984 and bought in 1999. When I am on a heavy-duty keep-fit regime, I’ll walk halfway and then get on a bus. I started doing that when they gave me 'twirly’ status two years ago.

'Twirly’ comes from when pensioners used to turn up at 9.20am to get on a bus using their bus pass, only to be told, 'You’re too early.’ Earliest memory I’m not sure how old I was, but I was young enough to be carried out of my uncle Stan’s wedding reception for screaming because I wasn’t allowed to have any wine. Everyone else had this red stuff and they wouldn’t let me have any. I’m still trying to make up for it – drinking wine is one of life’s great delights. Mistaken identity Over the years I have often been mistaken for Alan Bleasdale, who is a friend, and the authorship of our work is always getting mixed up. Two girls once stopped Alan and said, 'Aren’t you the fella who wrote Educating Willy?’ When Alan’s Boys from the Black Stuff was on, I was in a restaurant and the waiter brought a huge brandy to the table and said it was from the manager, with regards to Boys from the Black Stuff.

Two years ago I sent Alan a cutting from the Liverpool Echo – a picture of him captioned Willy Russell – and in return he sent me the poster (pictured) from a show we did together in 1984 titled Willy Bleasdale, Alan Russell & Friends. Composing Generally I use the piano and guitar for composition. Very occasionally I will start with melody. I did a song in Blood Brothers called Long Sunday Afternoon that started as pure melody, but I had to get to a guitar fast to work out the chords. I taught myself to play guitar when I was 14, after I saw the Beatles at the Cavern for the first time, which was intoxicating. They were like Martians walking on to the stage, dressed all in black with their hair combed forward. Nobody apart from sad kids at school whose dads cut their hair with a pudding basin looked like that. I knew then that life had changed. Related Articles Willy Russell 24 Mar 2010 Beginnings I was a ladies’ hairdresser for five years after I left school (with only one O-level), and I met Annie when I was 19.

She was a teacher, and it was because of her I decided to go back to education. In those days mature students were unheard of, and a more alien concept was a guy joining the girls’ typing class, as I did. I knew I wanted to be a writer and Annie bought me my first typewriter (pictured) at that time. With it I wrote John, Paul, George, Ringo and Bert, my play about the Beatles, and the first script of Educating Rita. Question always asked I am often asked where I get my ideas from. I am always at great pains to point out that an idea is just an idea – it’s an ambition or intention. The assumption is that you have an idea and that’s it, but really it is just the beginning of a possibly long process. By the time I’ve got that far in the answer, though, the questioner usually has a glazed expression on their face. There is an essay on my website titled Where Do I Get My Ideas From?, so perhaps I should just direct them to that in future. Writing It is a nightmare. I often begin work, but only ever finish something if I have to deliver to a deadline.

When I’m tied to the deadline, I get more and more frantic, terrified, confused and frustrated, until finally I get to the point where instead of trying to write the greatest piece of work that was ever written, I’m forced into the situation of writing a piece of work that has to be delivered. The deadline takes away the responsibility for the masterpiece. Useful resources My father in-law, in whose library I wrote Educating Rita, gave me a rhyming dictionary (pictured) in 1968, but I haven’t found a rhyme in it to this day. Sometimes I’ll exhaust everything I can come up with to rhyme with a word and then I’ll check it to make sure there is not something out of the reach of my mind that I’ve missed. What it is most useful for is quickly establishing that there is not a rhyme for something. One need never look for a rhyme for 'orange’ or 'month’, for example. Personalised lyrics I was invited to Scotland by Paul McCartney in the mid-1970s because he was interested in making a film with Wings and wanted me to see if I could come up with a plot, which I did but it didn’t go ahead in the end.

It was when they were recording Back to the Egg and I asked Paul for a set of lyrics to work with. He wrote me a longhand description of the album and the lyrics of each track (pictured), which is a lovely thing to have, and hilariously he calls me Woolly Rissole throughout. Cigarette box I keep my wooden cigarette box (pictured) on display to remind me how glad I am that I don’t smoke any more. I gave up a more-than-40-a-day habit in 1999 after I was wheeled into intensive care having suffered a heart attack. I have a recurring dream that I have taken up smoking again and when I wake up it always takes a second or two for me to realise I’ve been dreaming. Playwright Willy Russell Willy Russell Willy Russell (Playwright, Educating Rita .) was born in Whiston, near Liverpool, U.K.,in 1947. He left school when he was fifteen and became a ladies hairdresser for six years,but he left to do a variety of jobs, including stacking stockings in a warehouse and cleaning girders in a car factory. He also began writing and composing folk songs and performing at clubs and concerts.

Around this time, he decided to complete his education. He went to college, became a school teacher,and as he became more interested in drama, he began to write. His first plays were produced in the early 1970s as part of a student production at St. Katharine’s College in Liverpool and later taken to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. His subsequent plays include a couple of pieces written for BBC TV. In 1974, he wrote his first major success, the musical John, Paul, George, Ringo ... and Bert, which won the Evening Standard and London’s Critics Awards for Best Musical and launched two national tours. His next major works in the 1970s include Breezeblock Park, Our Day Out (presented on BBC), One for the Road, and Stags and Hens. In 1979, he wrote Educating Rita, which was commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The play won many awards, including the Society of West End Theatre Award (SWET Award – now called the Olivier Award) for Best Comedy, and ran for the next three years, followed by two highly successful national tours.

The following year, he was honored with an Academy Award nomination for writing the screenplay for the film, which starred Michael Caine and Julie Walters. In 1983, he wrote the award-winning musical Blood Brothers, a bigs uccess in London which eventually opened on Broadway ten years later. In 1988, he wrote the play Shirley Valentine, winner of the Olivier Award for Best Comedy, which transferred to Broadway the following year, and he also wrote the screenplay for the feature film. In 2000, his first novel, The Wrong Boy, was published. He currently lives in Liverpool and is working on a number of projects. August, 2008 Willy Russell - Literature Literature Biography Willy Russell was born in Liverpool in 1947. He became a hairdresser on leaving school, then undertook a variety of jobs, also writing songs which were performed in local folk clubs. He also wrote songs and sketches for local radio programmes. At 20 years of age, he returned to college and became a teacher in Toxteth, after which he began to become interested in writing drama.

His first play, Keep your Eyes Down, was produced in 1971, and he became well-known after his musical about the Beatles, John, Paul, George, Ringo … and Bert, ran for eight weeks at Liverpool Everyman Theatre. It was transferred to the West End and won the Evening Standard and London Theatre Critic Award for best musical in 1974. Since then he has written several plays, including Educating Rita (1981), about a working-class woman who decides to study English with the Open University and Shirley Valentine (1988), a housewife who becomes transformed after a holiday in Greece. Both plays were made into films from Willy Russell’s own screenplays starring Julie Walters and Pauline Collins respectively, each winning an Oscar nomination, as did the author for best screenplay. He has also written plays for television, including the well-received Our Day Out (1984). Willy Russell has continued to write songs since the early 1960s. He wrote the lyrics and score for his popular musical Blood Brothers (1986), about a pair of twins separated at birth.

The show has been playing in the West End since 1983 and won 3 Best Music Award and one Best Actress Award at the Laurence Olivier Awards. He also wrote the score for Shirley Valentine, and for several other television series and plays. His first album, Hoovering the Moon, was released in 2003. In 2000, Willy Russell published his first novel, The Wrong Boy. It is currently being adapted for television. He lives and works in Liverpool. Critical perspective Willy Russell’s Rita and Shirley Valentine are two of the most memorable creations of recent decades. Wise, funny and incessantly acerbic, they are irresistible, full of sarcastic zest and a melancholic longing for a different way of life, for new ways of seeing, for alternative expectations from the world around them; they speak to anyone borne without an item from the cutlery tray in their mouth, to those who have lived beyond privilege.

Russell is a very British writer; he has the dry wit of Alans Bleasdale and Bennett, the sort of obsession with class and social problems you see in the work of Mike Leigh or Ken Loach, the constrained and peculiar sense of wry sentimentality prevalent in much of British writing, and an obvious affection for his characters, evident in everything from Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey to the songs of The Smiths. The standard British writer type - conventional, middle class-upbringing involving tutelage in private or public school of varying prestige, three year attendance at either one of the country’s premier universities, any number of years in waiting before being acclaimed as the new chronicler of London society - is the very opposite of who Russell is. He left school at the age of 15 with one ‘O’ Level in English language and became a hairdresser. When he was 20, he returned to education and went on to become a teacher. Encouraged by his wife, Russell began to take a fervent interest in theatre and started writing, first songs and later plays.

He spent those years usually described as formative in the very opposite of an intellectual environment, and all his work is suffused with a respect for the world of work, with a railing against pretension, and a passionate enthusiasm for ideas. Russell’s work has always been defined by its interest in what he has described as 'the poetry of common speech.' His characters are of the working class, often placed in trying circumstances. Through their actions, Russell derives his essentially warm yet never patronising comedy. He is undoubtedly an optimist; if one were to look for the exact polar opposite of Samuel Beckett the search could stop here. Russell cannot stray from his belief in a certain goodness at the heart of humanity; it is that he is able to communicate this with humour which makes his work so appealing. Without the humour, his work would be mawkish. With it, it is never less than stirring, and always moving. Shirley Valentine (1988) and Educating Rita (1981) are Russell’s two most successful plays, which also became hit films. Both feature strong female characters and are, in essence, about the need to escape and the desire for self-transformation.

Educating Rita was inspired by Russell’s experience of returning to education as a mature student, and uses the Pygmalion myth as source material. It is the tale of brash, spade-is-a-spade Susan White, a hairdresser who decides to call herself Rita and study English at the Open University. Although much of the comedy is derived from her naïve, uncritical responses to the great classics of world literature, none of it condescends to her, and given the air of pomposity that surrounds the study of writers, (implied by the play rather than explicitly stated), Russell leaves us in no doubt that we should be sympathetic towards Rita. That he was able to achieve this is the primary reason for the play’s eternal charm and continued success. Educating Rita’s emotional punch comes from the desire of its protagonist to free herself from her situation and surroundings, to be more than others imagined she ever could be. The theme of flight, be it from the self, a situation or circumstance, is central to Russell’s other huge theatrical hit, Shirley Valentine.

It takes the form of a monologue by a housewife before and after a life-changing Greek holiday, and begins with the now classic address by Shirley to a wall in her kitchen. Bored preparing her husband’s 'chips and egg', she undergoes an epiphany and comes to a new understanding of herself, both emotional and sexual, a self which has been frustrated by years of stagnant routine. Fresh from the success of Educating Rita, Russell was commissioned to write a piece for Merseyside Young People’s Theatre, which visited schools in the area. This eventually became the musical Blood Brothers (1986), described by critic Sheridan Morley as 'undoubtedly the most exciting thing to have happened to the English musical theatre in years.' Blood Brothers is a modern-day prince and the pauper tale about twins born into a poor Liverpool family, only to be separated when their mother realises she cannot afford to keep them both. When they meet years later, they become great friends, but the story is not to end happily. It all turns on the enternal nature/nurture question, and generates passion in that it taps into our primal need to belong, to form part of a social group.

The Wrong Boy (2000), Willy Russell’s first novel, ten years in gestation, is one of the most memorable books of recent years. In Raymond Marks, Russell created a character who is more than ready to stand alongside Rita and Shirley Valentine. In choosing the epistolary form, Russell was able to ease his transition into the world of prose fiction: his first novel is essentially a series of dramatic monologues. Raymond, a 19-year old from Manchester, addresses his letters to his hero Morrissey. He is a natural misfit, and cut from typical Russell cloth. Working class, Northern, full of secret yearnings and longings, desperate to get out yet somehow resigned to being incapable of doing so, he is Rita and Shirley but with an extra dose of the pathetic. Whereas they possess some central core of inner strength, Raymond is, for much of the time, forever at the mercy of others, outside of control of his own life, misunderstood, drifting into patterns that people seem intent on creating for him.

The Wrong Boy is a road movie of a novel, Raymond being en route from Manchester to Grimsby; and it is also a recreation of the past in which Raymond has suffered from misunderstandings so great that they have quite literally blighted his life. It is all written in one defiantly subjective voice. As Raymond takes us back and forth through his own madness we are forced to ask ourselves how much of it is real. The Wrong Boy is heartbreaking, funny, charming and absolutely compelling. However, Russell allows it to fall into too neat a trap at its conclusion, whereby coincidence, and the desire for a heart-warming conclusion contrive to produce an ending that falls into sentimentality. Yet there is something oddly satisfying about this, for so real is Raymond, that you cannot help but long for this kind of denouement, you care so much about him that you almost need the relief of knowing that everything might be all right. Russell will perhaps forever be the kind of writer written about in vaguely patronising terms by the serious London press. He has been dismissed by some as 'the housewives' choice'. The only thing that can be said is that the housewives of Great Britain have commendable taste.

Garan Holcombe, 2005 SHIRLEY VALENTINE: The Playwright - Long Wharf Theatre Home The Playwright Willy Russell was born in Whiston, near Liverpool in 1947, grew up in a left-wing household. His dad, at various times, worked in the mines, in a factory, ran a fish and chip shop and also ran a library-on-a-bicycle, transporting books in two suitcases strapped to the sides of his bike. "When I grew up, on an estate, we didn't live in a classic extended family, but there were all my aunties, cousins, my mum and granny. It was after the war and all the men were on shift in the factories, so I was brought up in a very maternalistic atmosphere, and I suppose I must have spent a lot of time sitting un-noticed but absorbing the women's view of the world. You know what adults are like when they're all together, talking; they think a small child isn't interested or isn't taking it in. But I think I did - not by consciously doing so.

I think I absorbed it through my pores" At his Mum's suggestion he became a women's hairdresser when he left school at 15 and although maintains he was never very good at it, Willy eventually managed a shop in Kirkby. He was a hairdresser for six years, an experience, he says, that made him an indifferent dresser of hair but 'a good listener'. When he left he did a variety of jobs, including stacking stockings in the warehouse at 'Bear Brand' and a brief spell in the Ford car factory at Hailwood cleaning girders. He originally began writing as a songwriter, composing songs in the folk idiom. Many of his songs were performed at local folk clubs playing in a semi-pro capacity on the same kind of circuit where the likes of Billy Connolly, Barbara Dickson, Mike Harding, Jasper Carrot and Victoria Wood cut their teeth. He contributed songs and sketches to local radio programmes. Willy also ran a folk club for a time.

He had one song recorded on a Radio Enterprise LP 'A Sampler of Britain' and he and his group The Kirkby Town 3 performed on Granada TV in 1967 - losing out in a talent competition that also featured an early incarnation of Tyrannosaurus Rex and was ultimately won by the band Amen Corner. He also collaborated on a stage documentary ' A Lancashire Story' (performed at Notre Dame College, Liverpool in 1969). At the age of twenty, he decided to complete his education and went to college in order to improve his qualifications, after which he became a schoolteacher in Toxteth. Willy met Annie (now his wife) and at her prompting, he became more interested in drama, started going to plays and began to write. His ambition to be a serious writer was fired and further focused when he saw a production of John McGrath's Unruly Elements at Liverpool's Everyman Theatre in 1971. What he particularly noticed about this play was 'the poetry of common speech', and this has been a hallmark of his own work.

His first play, Keep Your Eyes Down, was produced in 1971, but he made his name withJohn, Paul, George, Ringo … and Bert, a musical about the Beatles. This had been commissioned by the Liverpool Everyman where it ran for a (then) unprecedented eight weeks before transferring to the West End where it won the Evening Standard and London Theatre Critics awards for the best musical of 1974. Thereafter his plays have won widespread popular and critical acclaim. He has said that his work is concerned with the essential goodness of humanity, and although his characters are often depicted in bleak circumstances, there is an underlying optimism and warmth in his view of the world. This has inevitably led to accusations of sentimentality, but on the whole Willy Russell manages to avoid this pitfall. Two of his best-known plays have female protagonists, Educating Rita, which was inspired by his own experience of returning to education, is about a young woman working class woman who decides to study English with the Open University.

Much of the comedy arises from her fresh, unschooled reaction to the classics of English literature, but she is never patronised by the author, who recognises from his own experience that education is a means of escape from one's own circumstances. Shirley Valentine is also about escape, and takes the form of a monologue by a housewife before and after a transforming holiday in Greece. Both plays were made into very successful films from Willy Russell's own screenplays, featuring the actresses who originally created the roles on stage (Julie Walters, and Pauline Collins each of whom won an Oscar nomination for their respective roles, as did Russell for his Educating Rita screenplay). Willy Russell's other huge theatrical success has been Blood Brothers, 'a Liverpudlian folk opera' about a pair of twins separated at birth and brought up in completely different environments. It continues to enjoy a very long run in London's West End and played a two year run on Broadway. The British touring version continues to play to packed houses and amongst the many new foreign productions currently being planned, a second Korean production opens this year, directed by Glen Walford.

Willy Russell has also written plays for television, the most famous of which was Our Day Out, an affecting story of a group of Liverpool schoolchildren on a coach outing with two teachers, one of whom is a disciplinarian, the other a liberal. This play has been enacted by tens of thousands of school kids across the UK. The Wrong Boy, Willy Russell's first novel, was published in 2000 to critical acclaim and, as with his all his plays, has been translated into many different languages. In 2003 Willy Russell's first album - Hoovering The Moon - was released, and Willy's musical talent, partially sheltered for years behind his literary skills, was available for all to see and hear. In 2004 Hoovering the Moon was given a full commercial release and is now available at gigs, direct from this web-site, and also from record shops across the UK. A successful tour followed its release with In Other Words & Singing Playwrights touring with fellow wordsmith Tim Firth and a full band. Willy Russell continues to live and work in his home city of Liverpool.

222 Sargent Drive New Haven, CT 06511 (203) 787-4282 © Copyright Long Wharf Theatre. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy. Site developed by think creative group Other Shows by Willy Russell, Writer of Blood Brothers Other Shows by Willy Russell, Writer of Blood Brothers Educating Rita ‘ Blood Brothers ’ the musical was written by playwright and composer Willy Russell in 1983 and was first shown to audiences in Liverpool, Russell’s home city, before transferring to London’s West end in 1988. In 1991, the musical moved from the Noel Coward Theatre, formerly the Albery, to the Phoenix Theatre on Charing Cross Road, where it still shows to sold-out audiences to this day. As well as writing the story for ’Blood Brothers’, Willy Russell also composed the musical score, has written several other plays and TV shows since and has published one novel in the year 2000.

Before ‘Blood Brothers’, Willy Russell had written several plays and musicals such as ‘John, Paul, George, Ringo…and Bert’, a musical about British pop group The Beatles, which showed at the Lyric Theatre in London in 1974 and ran for a successful year, having been named ‘Best Musical of 1974’ by the Evening Standard Awards. In 1980, three years before Blood Brothers premiered to audiences in Liverpool, Willy Russell’s play ‘Educating Rita’ was shown at The Warehouse in London. The play was set entirely in the office of an Open University lecturer and told the story of the relationship between a young Liverpudlian hairdresser and a middle-aged university professor. The play was so successful that Russell adapted the screenplay for a film in 1983 starring Julie Walters, who had originally played the part on the stage, and Oscar-winning actor Michael Caine. For his adapted screenplay, Russell received an Oscar and a BAFTA nomination.

As well as ‘Educating Rita’ and ‘Blood Brothers’, Willy Russell has seen soaring success with the play ‘Shirley Valentine’ , the story of a middle-aged housewife from Liverpool, focusing on her life before and after a life-changing holiday abroad. The play first opened in Liverpool in 1986 before transferring to London’s Vaudeville Theatre starring Pauline Collins. The show crossed the pond to New York where it ran for over 300 performances on Broadway and won a Theatre World Award for Outstanding Broadway Debut. In 1989, ‘Shirley Valentine’ was adapted into a film, again starring Collins as the title role, where she received a BAFTA Award. Willy Russell also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for the BAFTA and Oscar Awards. Willy Russell’s plays are often revived on the London and UK stage, most recently from 20th July to 30th October 2010 when ‘Shirley Valentine’ was performed for a limited run, with Meera Syal in the title role. Stay tuned for any news on Willy Russell revivals in 2011.

Willy Russell, 2014 | national doodle day national doodle day 2014 doodle by Willy Russell British playwright, novelist, lyricist, and composer whose works include Educating Rita, Shirley Valentine and Blood Brothers. Willy says “May your doodles raise oodles for such a great cause” 0 0 want to own this doodle? You can bid in our eBay auction! Sign up for an email alert and we will let you know when the auction is live. more doodles by: email me about doodle day * This field is required National Doodle Day supports the work of Epilepsy Action, a registered charity in England (No. 234343). Epilepsy Action is the working name of British Epilepsy Association. All text and images © National Doodle Day™ all rights reserved. find us online: Willy Russell Net Worth | Celebrity Net Worth Willy Russell Net Worth Willy Russell net worth: $10 Million Willy Russell net worth: Willy Russell is an English author, playwright, screenwriter, composer, and lyricist who has a net worth of $10 million.

Willy Russell was born in Whiston, Liverpool, England in August 1947. His best known works include the musical John, Paul, George, Ringo… and Bert, the made for television film, play, and musical Our Day Out, the play One For the Road, the play Stags and Hens that was filmed in 1990 as Dancin' thru the Dark, the play and film Educating Rita, the musical Blood Brothers, and the play and film Shirley Valentine. Russell has won three Laurence Olivier Awards and an Evening Standard British Film Award. He has also been nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, two BAFTA Awards, and two Tony Awards. Willy Russell Willy Russell Willy Russell is a celebrated playwright, screenwriter and television dramatist whose work includes: Educating Rita, Shirley Valentine, Our Day Out, One Summer and the musical Blood Brothers. His first success was a play about The Beatles called John, Paul, George, Ringo ... and Bert that was commissioned for the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, before it transferred to the West End in London, in 1974.

His play Educating Rita won the 1980 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy, and which he later adapted into a film starring Michael Caine and Julie Walters in 1983, and which was nominated for an Academy Award in 1984 for Best Adapted Screenplay. Shirley Valentine, another of his plays, was also a success, winning a Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy in 1988, and a Tony Award for Best Play in 1989. It was also adapted into a film by Russell, earning him an Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Screenplay in 1990, and a BAFTA nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay the same year. His musical Blood Brothers debuted in 1983, winning the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical that year, and the book of the musical won a Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical in 1993. A West End revival opened in 1988 and ran for more than 24 years and more than 10,000 performances, becoming the third longest-running musical production in West End history, and closing in November 2012.

The musical has been produced with success on tour, on Broadway and elsewhere. In 2009, Russell adapted his 1977 television play, Our Day Out, into a stage musical for which he wrote co-wrote the songs with director Bob Eaton. Alongside with his playwriting career Russell has also been a songwriter and musician. He wrote the melodies and lyrics for the songs in Blood Brothers, and provided the scores for the films, Shirley Valentine, Dancin' Thru the Dark and Mr Love; and in 1985 co-wrote ï¿½The Showï¿½, the theme song to the 1985 British drama television series Connie, which became a top 30 hit for vocalist Rebecca Storm. His 2003 album, Hoovering the Moon, received favourable reviews and featured contributions from a range of musicians including: Andy Roberts, Herbie Flowers, Iain Mathews, Rohan Kriwaczek, Louis Borenius, Mark Griffiths, John McCusker, Dave Holdsworth, Andy Cutting, Tim Firth, Loretto Murray, Kate Rusby, Paul Allen, Bernard O'Neill, and Barbara Dickson who sings alongside Russell on it.

His first novel, The Wrong Boy, published in 2000, is written in epistolary form, where the main character a 19-year old boy from Manchester, tells the story of his life in letters to his hero Morrissey. Q: Do you think of your lyrics as poetry? A: No I think that poetry and lyric writing are quite different things, a poem being something complete in itself and a lyric is something which combines with a melody to form something that we know as song. I think I have some kind of understanding of what constitutes a lyric and how to go about creating one. In truth, though, I don't think I have the first idea about what it is that makes a poem. I've certainly written stand-alone verseï¿½but that's how I'd describe it, verse, not poetry. Q: Do you think it is important that songs rhyme and if so why? A: I don't think it's important that all songs rhyme. It really depends on the kind of song you're making.

There's certainly been a strong tradition of using highly sophisticated and elaborate rhyme in, say, the Broadway musical where the likes of Sondheim, Porter, Lerner, Hart et al have revelled in demonstrating the kind of dazzling brilliance of rhyme to an audience which appreciates and even expects this level of dextrous word play. If we look at opera, on the other hand, then it's noticeable that so little of it is written to rhymeï¿½the reason largely being that unlike in the musical where even the most elaborate songs consist of repetitive bar songs, the music in opera rarely uses the kind of 16 or 32 bar repetition that is associated with rhyme. In pop song, it's usually a given that there will be rhyme whether it's the tritest piece of bubble gum pop or hardcore gangster rap but there are those writers who explored the non-rhyming, blank verse form, notably Paul Simon (ï¿½Americaï¿½), Bob Dylan (ï¿½A Hard Rain's a Gonna Fallï¿½), Sting (ï¿½Fields of Goldï¿½) etc.

Q: Do you think song lyrics must conform to recognised song structures such as clear rhyming schemes, choruses, refrains, hooks and bridges or that songs can also be like free verse? A: As indicated in the previous answer, I don't think there are any rules that can't effectively be broken. The ultimate test of a song is whether it works or not. We all know examples of appalling songs that have been written with an adherence to a supposed set of rules and which end up being formulaic, unoriginal and, ultimately, unsuccessful in that they don't engage the heart and mind of the listener. I think that anyone, though, who practices a craft can only benefit from having some understanding of the elements of that craft. The difficulty is getting the balance right so that knowledge of song structure aids the imagination without impairing that imagination. Q: When you read poetry in school or elsewhere did you recognize any connection to the music you enjoyed? A: At Rainford County Secondary, in 1959, poetry was not a big feature. In the D streamï¿½where I residedï¿½subjects such as English Literature were not even on the curriculum.

We thickos had to make do with woodwork, metalwork, PE, domestic science and gardeningï¿½yes, gardening! We did study English Language and one teacher, I recall, introduced us to Alfred Noyes's narrative ballad, ï¿½The Highwaymanï¿½, (later set to music by Phil Ochs). Although I loved ï¿½The Highwaymanï¿½, it wasn't something that related in any way to the music I was listening to at the time. Obviously, there were links between this first poem and, say, the narrative element in some of the Chuck Berry stuff to which I was addictedï¿½ï¿½Memphis Tennesseeï¿½, ï¿½Johnny B Goodeï¿½ etc., but, Chuck Berry and Alfred Noyes seemed to me to be so culturally apartï¿½ancient/contemporary, British/American, spoken/sungï¿½that I was simply blind to any link. Q: Was there anything about poetry in books that influenced your songwriting? A: I only really came to poetry in my late teens and by that time I was already writing songs.

As most of my songwriting was, broadly speaking, in the folk tradition, I tended to look towards more traditional verse as my example, and in this particular way I became very influenced for a while by the work of Robert Burns. I saw this form of poetry as being quite separate from the more contemporary poetry that I was now accessing, e.g., the Beats, the Liverpool poets, Christopher Logue, Dylan Thomas, Adrian Mitchell etc., etc. Had my songwriting not been in this folk tradition, then I may well have taken more inspiration and found more example from the work of such contemporary or near contemporary poets but, as it was, I seemed to read these writers with no idea of them affecting the kind of work I was trying to achieve. Q: Why do you think songs are more popular with people than poetry is? A: Melody. Music, the most visceral of all the arts, touches us in a way and at a level that nothing else can. Add to this, the fact that song has never been appropriated and canonised by a self-serving elite in the way that poetry has. Song still belongs to everyone and has no stigma of class or supposed intellectualism about it. Nobody is made afraid by a song.

Question: Which British playwright wrote Educating Rita, Blood Brothers and Shirley Valentine?
Answer: Willy Russell