Mary Melwood: Difference between revisions
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== Plays == |
== Plays == |
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Mary Melwood wrote four children’s plays: ''The Tingalary Bird'' (1964), ''Five Minutes to Morning'' (1965), ''Masquerade'' (1974), and ''The Small Blue Hoping Stone'' (1976).<ref>{{Citation |last=Hutley |first=Krista |title=Melwood, Mary |
Mary Melwood wrote four children’s plays: ''The Tingalary Bird'' (1964), ''Five Minutes to Morning'' (1965), ''Masquerade'' (1974), and ''The Small Blue Hoping Stone'' (1976).<ref>{{Citation |last=Hutley |first=Krista |title=Melwood, Mary |date=2006-01-01 |encyclopedia=The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780195146561.001.0001/acref-9780195146561-e-2184 |access-date=2025-06-05 |publisher=Oxford University Press |language=en |isbn=978-0-19-514656-1}}.</ref> |
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''The Tingalary Bird'' won the first British Arts Council Award for Children’s Theatre,<ref>Swortzell, Lowell (1972), [https://ia800801.us.archive.org/0/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.186194/2015.186194.All-The-Worlds-A-Stage_text.pdf All the World's a Stage,] page 496. Retrieved 2025-06-06.</ref> and was first performed with the [[Unicorn Theatre]] for Young People at the Arts Theatre in London on 21 December 1964.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Cirella-Urrutia |first=Anne |date=2011 |title=When The French Theater of the Absurd Meets Children |
''The Tingalary Bird'' won the first British Arts Council Award for Children’s Theatre,<ref>Swortzell, Lowell (1972), [https://ia800801.us.archive.org/0/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.186194/2015.186194.All-The-Worlds-A-Stage_text.pdf All the World's a Stage,] page 496. Retrieved 2025-06-06.</ref> and was first performed with the [[Unicorn Theatre]] for Young People at the Arts Theatre in London on 21 December 1964.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Cirella-Urrutia |first=Anne |date=2011 |title=When The French Theater of the Absurd Meets Children's Theater: The Use of Farce as Theatrical Innovation in Eugène Ionesco's Les Chaises and Mary Melwood's The Tingalary Bird |url=https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=592406 |journal=Comunicare Interculturală și Literatură |language=English |volume=13 |issue=1 |pages=57–65 |issn=1844-6965}}</ref> It is an absurdist piece with three main characters: an Old Man and Old Woman in their ramshackle cottage, and a caged Bird left on their doorstep. The Bird’s eyes light with different colours and its tail changes from black to colourful. The play is in three short acts with songs and pieces of audience interaction interspersed throughout. It was first published in the New Plays for Children series,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Melwood |first=Mary |title=The Tingalary Bird |url=https://www.dramaticpublishing.com/browse/the-tingalary-bird |access-date=2025-06-05 |website=www.dramaticpublishing.com |isbn=9780932720788}}</ref> and was included in the anthology in ''All the World’s a Stage: Modern Plays for Young People'', ed. Lowell Swortzell.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Swortzell |first=Lowell |url=http://archive.org/details/allworldsstage00swor |title=All the world's a stage; modern plays for young people |date=1972 |publisher=New York, Delacorte Press |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0440004097}}</ref> |
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Melwood’s second play ''Five Minutes to Morning'' was also granted an Arts Council Award,<ref>[https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/download-file/The%20Arts%20Council%20of%20Great%20Britain%20-%20Twenty%20second%20annual%20report%20and%20accounts%20year%20ended%2031%20March%201967.pdf The Arts Council of Great Britain 22nd Annual Report]</ref> and it was included in the anthology ''Contemporary Children’s Theater'', ed. [[Betty Jean Lifton]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lifton |first=Betty Jean |url=https://openlibrary.org/books/OL10752880M/Contemporary_Children's_Theater |title=Contemporary Children's Theater |publisher=Avon Books |year=1974 |isbn=9780380001453}}</ref> Both ''The Tingalary Bird'' and ''Five Minutes to Morning'' were performed multiple times throughout the USA, Canada, Australia and the UK.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Production of The Tingalary Bird {{!}} Theatricalia |url=https://theatricalia.com/play/hq6/the-tingalary-bird/production/16sq |access-date=2025-06-05 |website=theatricalia.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Five minutes to morning written by Mary Melwood ; director, Des Davis, 1977 - University of Guelph Library Archival and Special Collections |url=https://archives-catalogue.lib.uoguelph.ca/30-480 |access-date=2025-06-06 |website=archives-catalogue.lib.uoguelph.ca}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Past Productions |url=https://www.sct.org/past-productions/ |access-date=2025-06-06 |website=Seattle Children's Theatre |language=en-US}}</ref> |
Melwood’s second play ''Five Minutes to Morning'' was also granted an Arts Council Award,<ref>[https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/download-file/The%20Arts%20Council%20of%20Great%20Britain%20-%20Twenty%20second%20annual%20report%20and%20accounts%20year%20ended%2031%20March%201967.pdf The Arts Council of Great Britain 22nd Annual Report]</ref> and it was included in the anthology ''Contemporary Children’s Theater'', ed. [[Betty Jean Lifton]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lifton |first=Betty Jean |url=https://openlibrary.org/books/OL10752880M/Contemporary_Children's_Theater |title=Contemporary Children's Theater |publisher=Avon Books |year=1974 |isbn=9780380001453|ol=10752880M }}</ref> Both ''The Tingalary Bird'' and ''Five Minutes to Morning'' were performed multiple times throughout the USA, Canada, Australia and the UK.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Production of The Tingalary Bird {{!}} Theatricalia |url=https://theatricalia.com/play/hq6/the-tingalary-bird/production/16sq |access-date=2025-06-05 |website=theatricalia.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Five minutes to morning written by Mary Melwood ; director, Des Davis, 1977 - University of Guelph Library Archival and Special Collections |url=https://archives-catalogue.lib.uoguelph.ca/30-480 |access-date=2025-06-06 |website=archives-catalogue.lib.uoguelph.ca}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Past Productions |url=https://www.sct.org/past-productions/ |access-date=2025-06-06 |website=Seattle Children's Theatre |language=en-US}}</ref> |
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[[File:Mary_Melwood_Week_certificate.png|thumb|Certificates dated 2nd December 1967 from William G. Milliken, Governor of the State of Michigan, and 18th November 1976 from Donald F. Fracassi, Mayor of Southfield, declaring 12th–18th December 1976 “Mary Melwood Week”.]] |
[[File:Mary_Melwood_Week_certificate.png|thumb|Certificates dated 2nd December 1967 from William G. Milliken, Governor of the State of Michigan, and 18th November 1976 from Donald F. Fracassi, Mayor of Southfield, declaring 12th–18th December 1976 “Mary Melwood Week”.]] |
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''Masquerade'' was first performed by the Nottingham Playhouse Company in 1970 and is a reimagining of [[Geoffrey Chaucer|Chaucerian fables]] for children, set on a farm and featuring music, dancing and audience participation. ''The Small Blue Hoping Stone'' is a Christmas drama about a struggling young couple who find meaning in a pebble on the beach. It was first performed by the Southfield Repertory Theatre in [[Southfield, Michigan]], in December 1976. Melwood was flown over so that she could see the performance and she was given a warm welcome, with the city’s mayor presenting her with a certificate that proclaimed 12th–18 December 1976 “Mary Melwood Week”. |
''Masquerade'' was first performed by the Nottingham Playhouse Company in 1970 and is a reimagining of [[Geoffrey Chaucer|Chaucerian fables]] for children, set on a farm and featuring music, dancing and audience participation. ''The Small Blue Hoping Stone'' is a Christmas drama about a struggling young couple who find meaning in a pebble on the beach. It was first performed by the Southfield Repertory Theatre in [[Southfield, Michigan]], in December 1976. Melwood was flown over so that she could see the performance and she was given a warm welcome, with the city’s mayor presenting her with a certificate that proclaimed 12th–18 December 1976 “Mary Melwood Week”. |
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''The Watcher Bee'', published by André Deutsch in 1982 and reprinted by Scholastic Publications Ltd in 1995,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Melwood |first=Mary |url=http://archive.org/details/watcherbee0000melw |title=The Watcher Bee |publisher=London : Andre Deutsch |others=Internet Archive |year=1982 |isbn=978-0-233-97432-3}}</ref> is a coming-of-age novel told from a first-person perspective. Kate, the Watcher Bee, is growing up in a small village in the Midlands in the interwar years. Orphaned soon after her birth, with both parents dying in 1919 during the [[Spanish flu]] [[Spanish flu|pandemic]], she is raised by her Granny, Uncle Ben and Aunt Beth. Kate is clever and resourceful but feels like an outsider, with love affairs largely confined to her own imagination. She is a teenager torn between exhilaration, boredom and fear in a world about to change as WWII looms on the horizon. ''The Watcher Bee'' won the Young Observer Fiction Prize in November 1982.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Triggs |first=Pat |date=1983-01-18 |title=Teenage Fiction Award – Books For Keeps |url=https://booksforkeeps.co.uk/article/teenage-fiction-award/ |access-date=2025-06-06 |website=booksforkeeps.co.uk}}</ref> |
''The Watcher Bee'', published by André Deutsch in 1982 and reprinted by Scholastic Publications Ltd in 1995,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Melwood |first=Mary |url=http://archive.org/details/watcherbee0000melw |title=The Watcher Bee |publisher=London : Andre Deutsch |others=Internet Archive |year=1982 |isbn=978-0-233-97432-3}}</ref> is a coming-of-age novel told from a first-person perspective. Kate, the Watcher Bee, is growing up in a small village in the Midlands in the interwar years. Orphaned soon after her birth, with both parents dying in 1919 during the [[Spanish flu]] [[Spanish flu|pandemic]], she is raised by her Granny, Uncle Ben and Aunt Beth. Kate is clever and resourceful but feels like an outsider, with love affairs largely confined to her own imagination. She is a teenager torn between exhilaration, boredom and fear in a world about to change as WWII looms on the horizon. ''The Watcher Bee'' won the Young Observer Fiction Prize in November 1982.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Triggs |first=Pat |date=1983-01-18 |title=Teenage Fiction Award – Books For Keeps |url=https://booksforkeeps.co.uk/article/teenage-fiction-award/ |access-date=2025-06-06 |website=booksforkeeps.co.uk}}</ref> |
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''Reflections in Black Glass'' was published by André Deutsch in 1987 and Headline Book Publishing in 1988.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Melwood |first=Mary |url=https://openlibrary.org/books/OL10197731M/Reflections_in_Black_Glass |title=Reflections in Black Glass |publisher=Andre Deutsch Ltd |year=1987 |isbn=9780233979564}}</ref> It is a third-person narrative set in Nottinghamshire in the interwar years. Practical-minded Bella Dashby marries Cyrus Millander, who owns Painsmort together with his brother Archie. Archie prizes his family and the scrap of marshland known as Black Glass above everything else in the world. When Archie’s farm fails, his family are forced to move to Morthill, with Bella and Cyrus taking control of the land. The novel charts the inner lives of the family members in both households as they navigate through challenging times. |
''Reflections in Black Glass'' was published by André Deutsch in 1987 and Headline Book Publishing in 1988.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Melwood |first=Mary |url=https://openlibrary.org/books/OL10197731M/Reflections_in_Black_Glass |title=Reflections in Black Glass |publisher=Andre Deutsch Ltd |year=1987 |isbn=9780233979564|ol=10197731M }}</ref> It is a third-person narrative set in Nottinghamshire in the interwar years. Practical-minded Bella Dashby marries Cyrus Millander, who owns Painsmort together with his brother Archie. Archie prizes his family and the scrap of marshland known as Black Glass above everything else in the world. When Archie’s farm fails, his family are forced to move to Morthill, with Bella and Cyrus taking control of the land. The novel charts the inner lives of the family members in both households as they navigate through challenging times. |
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== Personal life == |
== Personal life == |
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Latest revision as of 09:20, 28 June 2025
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Mary Melwood, a pen name of Eileen Mary Lewis, was an English playwright and author who wrote primarily for children during the 1960s to 1980s.[1] The Nottinghamshire countryside is a key theme in her writing, which draws particular inspiration from the River Trent and Sherwood Forest.
Plays
[edit]Mary Melwood wrote four children’s plays: The Tingalary Bird (1964), Five Minutes to Morning (1965), Masquerade (1974), and The Small Blue Hoping Stone (1976).[2]
The Tingalary Bird won the first British Arts Council Award for Children’s Theatre,[3] and was first performed with the Unicorn Theatre for Young People at the Arts Theatre in London on 21 December 1964.[4] It is an absurdist piece with three main characters: an Old Man and Old Woman in their ramshackle cottage, and a caged Bird left on their doorstep. The Bird’s eyes light with different colours and its tail changes from black to colourful. The play is in three short acts with songs and pieces of audience interaction interspersed throughout. It was first published in the New Plays for Children series,[5] and was included in the anthology in All the World’s a Stage: Modern Plays for Young People, ed. Lowell Swortzell.[6]
Melwood’s second play Five Minutes to Morning was also granted an Arts Council Award,[7] and it was included in the anthology Contemporary Children’s Theater, ed. Betty Jean Lifton.[8] Both The Tingalary Bird and Five Minutes to Morning were performed multiple times throughout the USA, Canada, Australia and the UK.[9][10][11]
Masquerade was first performed by the Nottingham Playhouse Company in 1970 and is a reimagining of Chaucerian fables for children, set on a farm and featuring music, dancing and audience participation. The Small Blue Hoping Stone is a Christmas drama about a struggling young couple who find meaning in a pebble on the beach. It was first performed by the Southfield Repertory Theatre in Southfield, Michigan, in December 1976. Melwood was flown over so that she could see the performance and she was given a warm welcome, with the city’s mayor presenting her with a certificate that proclaimed 12th–18 December 1976 “Mary Melwood Week”.
Melwood also wrote Mixie, a one-act play exploring darker themes. It was first performed at the New Venture Theatre in Brighton and Hove in November 2024, directed by Rod Lewis.[12] Mr and Mrs Bick live in a ramshackle cottage in the woods, and they argue about a range of things including the potentially mythical figure of Mixie. The play raises questions about relationships, co-dependency and dementia, leaving the audience to interpret what is and isn't real.[13]
Novels
[edit]Mary Melwood’s first novel Nettlewood was published by André Deutsch in 1974 and Seabury Press in 1975.[14] It is set just after the First World War in Owsterley, a fictional village by the River Trent. The main character is a 12-year-old girl, Lacie Lindrick. When her father falls ill and her mother is sent to care for him, Lacie is shunted between her two adult cousins Chloe and Nora, who have little time for her. However, Lacie soon befriends Gertie Sprott and Poor Tom. Together, they explore the secrets of Nettlewood and the surrounding countryside.
The Watcher Bee, published by André Deutsch in 1982 and reprinted by Scholastic Publications Ltd in 1995,[15] is a coming-of-age novel told from a first-person perspective. Kate, the Watcher Bee, is growing up in a small village in the Midlands in the interwar years. Orphaned soon after her birth, with both parents dying in 1919 during the Spanish flu pandemic, she is raised by her Granny, Uncle Ben and Aunt Beth. Kate is clever and resourceful but feels like an outsider, with love affairs largely confined to her own imagination. She is a teenager torn between exhilaration, boredom and fear in a world about to change as WWII looms on the horizon. The Watcher Bee won the Young Observer Fiction Prize in November 1982.[16]
Reflections in Black Glass was published by André Deutsch in 1987 and Headline Book Publishing in 1988.[17] It is a third-person narrative set in Nottinghamshire in the interwar years. Practical-minded Bella Dashby marries Cyrus Millander, who owns Painsmort together with his brother Archie. Archie prizes his family and the scrap of marshland known as Black Glass above everything else in the world. When Archie’s farm fails, his family are forced to move to Morthill, with Bella and Cyrus taking control of the land. The novel charts the inner lives of the family members in both households as they navigate through challenging times.
Personal life
[edit]Mary Melwood was the pen name of Eileen Mary Lewis, née Hall. She was born on 14 April 1912 and grew up in the village of Carlton in Lindrick, Nottinghamshire, England.[4] She married Morris Lewis in 1940 and they had two sons, Bob and Rod. Mary and Morris spent their final years in Brighton, where Morris painstakingly typed up her final novel Plainstones. She died in March 2002 at the age of 89.
References
[edit]- ^ OpenLibrary.org. "Mary Melwood". Open Library. Retrieved 2025-06-05.
- ^ Hutley, Krista (2006-01-01), "Melwood, Mary", The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-514656-1, retrieved 2025-06-05.
- ^ Swortzell, Lowell (1972), All the World's a Stage, page 496. Retrieved 2025-06-06.
- ^ a b Cirella-Urrutia, Anne (2011). "When The French Theater of the Absurd Meets Children's Theater: The Use of Farce as Theatrical Innovation in Eugène Ionesco's Les Chaises and Mary Melwood's The Tingalary Bird". Comunicare Interculturală și Literatură. 13 (1): 57–65. ISSN 1844-6965.
- ^ Melwood, Mary. The Tingalary Bird. ISBN 9780932720788. Retrieved 2025-06-05.
{{cite book}}:|website=ignored (help) - ^ Swortzell, Lowell (1972). All the world's a stage; modern plays for young people. Internet Archive. New York, Delacorte Press. ISBN 978-0440004097.
- ^ The Arts Council of Great Britain 22nd Annual Report
- ^ Lifton, Betty Jean (1974). Contemporary Children's Theater. Avon Books. ISBN 9780380001453. OL 10752880M.
- ^ "Production of The Tingalary Bird | Theatricalia". theatricalia.com. Retrieved 2025-06-05.
- ^ "Five minutes to morning written by Mary Melwood ; director, Des Davis, 1977 - University of Guelph Library Archival and Special Collections". archives-catalogue.lib.uoguelph.ca. Retrieved 2025-06-06.
- ^ "Past Productions". Seattle Children's Theatre. Retrieved 2025-06-06.
- ^ "Mixie - Nov 2024". archive-c.newventure.org.uk. Retrieved 2025-06-05.
- ^ Crosby, Susanne (2024-11-14). "Mixie Review". Brighton Source. Retrieved 2025-06-05.
- ^ Melwood, Mary (1975). Nettlewood. Internet Archive. New York: Seabury Press. ISBN 978-0-8164-3142-7.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link) - ^ Melwood, Mary (1982). The Watcher Bee. Internet Archive. London : Andre Deutsch. ISBN 978-0-233-97432-3.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link) - ^ Triggs, Pat (1983-01-18). "Teenage Fiction Award – Books For Keeps". booksforkeeps.co.uk. Retrieved 2025-06-06.
- ^ Melwood, Mary (1987). Reflections in Black Glass. Andre Deutsch Ltd. ISBN 9780233979564. OL 10197731M.