The Gamm to Premiere MORALITY PLAY

The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre (The Gamm) opens the new year with a thrilling world premiere, 15 years in the making! Morality Play, adapted for the stage by Tony Estrella from the best-selling novel by Booker-Prize winner Barry Unsworth, is historical fiction in the form of a Plague-time whodunit, with intrigue, suspense and fascinating insights on the evolution of story telling. Tyler Dobrowsky, Associate Artistic Director at Trinity Rep, directs a cast of Gamm veterans and newcomers portraying travelling actors, clergy, royalty and townspeople intertwined in a medieval murder mystery.

Morality Play runs from January 1 through February 1 at The Gamm Theatre, 172 Exchange St., Pawtucket, RI. Tickets are $41 and $49 (depending on day/time); preview performances (Jan. 1-4) just $30. Call 401-723-4266 or order online at gammtheatre.org.

ABOUT MORALITY PLAY - Adapted for the stage by Tony Estrella based on the novel by Barry Unsworth, Directed by Tyler Dobrowsky

1361: A bone-chilling winter in England. The Black Death, dormant for more than a decade, has returned with a vengeance. The Church rules the land, and a ragged troupe of actors accompanied by a renegade priest roam the countryside performing religious stories for the masses. But everything changes when a young boy is found dead and a mute girl stands to be hanged for the murder. Sensing a miscarriage of justice (and potential earnings!), the itinerant actors try to unravel the mystery by weaving the murder into their morality play. The result is a political morass fraught with danger for everyone involved. Adapted from the best-selling novel by Booker Prize Winner Barry Unsworth, Morality Play is a medieval murder mystery at the crossroads of sacred and secular-full of intrigue, suspense and lessons for our time.

"I finished the very first draft of the Morality Play adaptation in 1999. Dozens more drafts would follow and fifteen years later... I think it's finally ready! It's been a long, strange trip bringing Barry Unsworth's compact, flawless story of the birth of secular storytelling to the Gamm stage," said Gamm Artistic Director Tony Estrella. "With the theater as its motif, Morality Play illuminates that Promethean moment when humankind recaptured the fire of storytelling from the gods and turned its focus decidedly earthward. It's a thrilling, epic, murder mystery set at a revolutionary moment in human history. A decade and a half in the making, it marks a thrilling moment in Gamm history, as well."

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