A Play by Jay Presson Allen
Adapted from the novel by Muriel Spark

Performed
June 12-15, July 18-July 22, 2006
at
The Boal Barn Playhouse

Production Staff

Director	Tom McClary
Scenic Designer	Bret Sarlouis
Lighting Designer	Susan L. Polay
Costume Designer	Amy Silverman
Audio Designer	Mike Twomley
Technical Director	micah margolis
Stage Manager	Donald Ishler
Assistant Stage Manager	Anne Higgins
Apprentice Coordinator	Eric M. Brinser

About the Show

Teachers have not always fared well in literature. Consider the lanky, superstitious ambitious schoolmaster of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” Ichabod Crane. Remember all those grotesque incompetents who pass themselves off as teachers in the novels of Charles Dickens and who succeed only in terrifying their pupils. Think of those incurably romantic, often neurotic, love-lorn governesses so dear to the hearts of 19th-century writers and readers. Nor do matters improve much when we come to the 20th century. James Hilton’s Mr. Chips and Frances Gray Patton’s Miss dove are fine teachers and good human beings, but they are also overly sentimentalized, insufferably saint-like, and not terribly believable.

That is why Miss Jean Brodie in both Muriel Sparks’ novel and Jay Presson Allen’s play based on the novel is a fascinating character. As teachers of literature like to say about such characters, she is a round, not a flat, figure. Miss Brodie is most stimulating as a teacher, igniting the imaginations of her girls with stories about Giotto, La Traviata, and the Stuart Succession. Yet she is also not a liar, telling her girls to do as she tells them, not as she does herself. She is both nobly heroic and foolishly ridiculous. We approve of her rebellious nature but we wince and draw back at her support of fascism. Is Miss Brodie’s influence on the girls at Marcia Blaine school “excessive and baneful” as Miss Mackay, the headmistress, claims, or is Miss Brodie their friend and patron, influencing them “to be aware of all the possibilities of life,” as Miss Brodie counters? Is she a threat or a benefactor? Is she guilty or innocent? Whatever your final judgment, you will agree that she is a woman of unusual depth. We are not likely to forget Miss Brodie and what she means and does to her girls – “Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life.”

Richard Gidez
Reprinted from the State College Community Theatre’s 1980 playbill

The Cast

Sister Helena	Jane Chandlee
Mr. Perry	Randy Smith
Jean Brodie	Caitlin Osborne
Louise	Riley Sunday
Monica	Aimee Pearsall
Mary MacGregor	Lydia Snyder
Miss Mackay	Sivan Grunfeld
Sandy	Christina Mazur
Harriet	Sara Getson
Jenny	Kelley Edwards
Teddy Lloyd	Chris Gamble
Gordon Lowther	Nick Semon
Eunice	Hilary Caldwell
Patricia Campbell	Erin McQuay
Rose	Alexis Wulf
Barbara	Meredith Tillotson
Clara	Kaitlyn Wulf

Publicity Photos

Behind the Scenes