Information

Show Credits: Music by John Hawkins
Book by Nevill Coghill
Lyrics by Nevill Coghill
Book by Martin Starkie
Music by Richard Hill

Description: The universal, age-old battle between the sexes roars to musical life in CANTERBURY TALES, a rollicking adaptation of the lusty treatise on human nature and sexual politics that has illuminated scholars for hundreds of years.

As they make their annual pilgrimage to Canterbury, a group of English commoners laugh, sing and frolic through some of Geoffrey Chaucer's most appealing tales, filling the stage with a beguiling blend of boisterous comedy, lilting romance and fetching images, and entertaining themselves and the audience with great wit and charm. Represented here are five of Chaucer's best ("The Miller's Tale," "The Manciple's Tale," "The Steward's Tale," "The Merchant's Tale" and "The Wife of Bath's Tale"), all set to a delightful and quirky "baroque rock" score.

Accolades/
Awards: Canterbury Tales was nominated for four Tony Awards.

Insight from the experts Staging Tip: The original used a unit set with two raised platforms. You'd be wise to do something similar given the fast changes of the stories. Keep it simple and flexible. A "tree" in which a character can sit (can be mimed on a platform), a very quick magical switcheroo between an old woman and a young one. The show is in verse and musical actors can tend to let it get sing-songy. Guard against that. This show has amazing energy. Don't let the rich wording of the script lead you down the wrong path. Canterbury Tales is anything but staid; even in its own time, it was considered to be disgracefully bawdy -- but still enormously popular. The original production used painted flats rather than bulky sets. For example, the feast the pilgrims share before the journey was really a long flat painted with plates of food on the audience side. It's an idea built for speed, comedy and low budgets; you might consider something like that. Find out if area schools (or your school) is going to be studying Chaucer or Old English anytime near your production.