ABOUT THE PLAY
The Report examines the true, unknown story of the British government’s cover-up of the largest civilian tragedy of World War II. On March 3rd, 1943, 173 people died in London’s Bethnal Green tube station, which served as a bomb shelter during air raids. However not a single bomb was actually dropped that fateful night.
The government at first denied anything had happened then tried to ignore the accident and its victims. The British Home Secretary was finally forced by public outcry to hire a local magistrate to interview survivors and write an official report. When the report was finished, England’s War Office immediately held up its release.
How and why the Bethal Green shelter disaster happened was kept secret for thirty years, until a young BBC journalist making a documentary tracked down the now elderly magistrate, trying to uncover what actually happened that night. As truths are revealed, in the past and present, the young filmmaker discovers how trauma, fear, morale and the paranoia of war impact our very humanity, and how the specter of a single public calamity resonates throughout multiple generations.
A haunting new drama, The Report received a workshop production as part of the 2015 19th annual New York International Fringe Festival. Based on the novel by Jessica Francis Kane, The Report was adapted by Martin Casella, whose The Irish Curse earned the Outstanding Playwriting Award in the 2005 FringeNYC Festival. The show’s director is Alan Muraoka whose credits include Falsettoland, Xanadu and Karaoke Stories.
Produced by Barry Goralnick, Sarahbeth Grossman and Craig Zehms in association with the British/American company Cutting Hedge, The Report features a cavalcade of young British and North American actors including Phillipa Dawson, Denny Desmarais, Clemmie Evans, Natalie Frost, Jenny Green, James Physick, Jonathon Stephens, Zoe Watkins and Stuart Williams. Also in the cast are Americans Louis Lavoie and David Wells. More casting, and designers, will be announced soon.
Martin Casella’s recent theater credits, in addition to worldwide productions of The Irish Curse, include the award-winning Directions for Restoring the Apparently Dead and Scituate. He is the screenwriter of Tom’s Dad, starring Will Ferrell and directed by Lasse Hallstrom; and The Land of Sometimes, a new animated British feature film.
The Report examines the true, unknown story of the British government’s cover-up of the largest civilian tragedy of World War II. On March 3rd, 1943, 173 people died in London’s Bethnal Green tube station, which served as a bomb shelter during air raids. However not a single bomb was actually dropped that fateful night.
The government at first denied anything had happened then tried to ignore the accident and its victims. The British Home Secretary was finally forced by public outcry to hire a local magistrate to interview survivors and write an official report. When the report was finished, England’s War Office immediately held up its release.
How and why the Bethal Green shelter disaster happened was kept secret for thirty years, until a young BBC journalist making a documentary tracked down the now elderly magistrate, trying to uncover what actually happened that night. As truths are revealed, in the past and present, the young filmmaker discovers how trauma, fear, morale and the paranoia of war impact our very humanity, and how the specter of a single public calamity resonates throughout multiple generations.
A haunting new drama, The Report received a workshop production as part of the 2015 19th annual New York International Fringe Festival. Based on the novel by Jessica Francis Kane, The Report was adapted by Martin Casella, whose The Irish Curse earned the Outstanding Playwriting Award in the 2005 FringeNYC Festival. The show’s director is Alan Muraoka whose credits include Falsettoland, Xanadu and Karaoke Stories.
Produced by Barry Goralnick, Sarahbeth Grossman and Craig Zehms in association with the British/American company Cutting Hedge, The Report features a cavalcade of young British and North American actors including Phillipa Dawson, Denny Desmarais, Clemmie Evans, Natalie Frost, Jenny Green, James Physick, Jonathon Stephens, Zoe Watkins and Stuart Williams. Also in the cast are Americans Louis Lavoie and David Wells. More casting, and designers, will be announced soon.
Martin Casella’s recent theater credits, in addition to worldwide productions of The Irish Curse, include the award-winning Directions for Restoring the Apparently Dead and Scituate. He is the screenwriter of Tom’s Dad, starring Will Ferrell and directed by Lasse Hallstrom; and The Land of Sometimes, a new animated British feature film.
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