On 17th April 2022 at 3pm and 7.30pm, the Drayton Arms Theatre, Kensington, will host GRRRLZ - a new musical about female empowerment set in 1968.
Amidst the social revolution, colourful fashion and vibrant music of the late 1960s, Kathy Brown has spent so much time attending protest marches that she is suspended from Oxford University. Through the ‘renowned scholastic agency of Grabitall and Tring’, she finds employment as the Lower Fifth form tutor at Ruffwood Park, a girls’ school untouched by the swinging sixties. Will Kathy ever be able to get through to the unruly Lower Fifth form? Will they ever want to learn anything? And will the fearsome headmistress Miss de Trique’s reign of terror ever come to an end?
GRRRLZ is an original musical comedy for an almost entirely female cast, drawing its inspiration from musicians as diverse as Aretha Franklin, Louis Armstrong and Gilbert & Sullivan; its richly comic plot from a unique blend of Pythonesque farce, schoolgirls straight out of St Trinians, and Cold War espionage; and its setting from late 1960s politics of anti-Establishment counterculture and second-wave Feminism.
Originally written and filmed during the Covid pandemic of 2020-21 with a cast of fourteen schoolgirls and released as four half-hour episodes on YouTube, GRRRLZ was adapted for the Oxford-based DIY Theatre Company in October 2021, with a cast of 32 and an eight-piece band. The musical was subsequently adapted for a cast of twelve for its London debut at the Etcetera Theatre, Camden, in December 2021, a performance that was described by Everything Theatre as 'Two acts full of music with powerful lyrics make the whole play addictive...a really funny, upbeat musical which I would highly recommend, and would see again in a heartbeat.'
GRRRLZ has now undergone further revisions for the Drayton Arms Theatre, appearing on one day only: Sunday 17th April.
GRRRLZ is suitable for all ages and has a running time of 100 minutes, plus interval.
What? GRRRLZ, a new musical comedy about female empowerment
When? Sunday 17th April 2022 at 3pm and 7.30pm
Where? Drayton Arms Theatre, 153 Old Brompton Road, London, SW5 0LJ
How much? £16/£12
Running time? 2 hours (including interval)
Suitable for? All ages
Tickets from: hwww.thedraytonarmstheatre.co.uk/grrrlz
Further info: www.grrrlz.co.uk
