EDWARD ALBEE'S
THE ZOO STORY
Feb 27-March 1 2008 - The Carriageworks, Leeds
The Zoo Story was Amerrycan’s first theatrical production, playing to sell-out audiences, directed by Toni Hird and performed in a delightful studio theatre, Upstairs at The Carriageworks, in the heart of Leeds. Set during a summer day on a park bench in New York City’s Central Park, it explores the unlikely friendship that grows between Jerry, a transient, and Peter, a middle-class family man. It is an Obie-award winning, hilarious and shocking look at two very different sides of the American dream. Premiering in 1959, its crackling dialogue and surprising twists still have the power to pummel our modern day values of materialism, conformity and complacency.​​
Directed by: Toni Hird
Jerry: Richard Dipple
Peter: Bryan Bounds
The Producer’s thoughts, by Bryan Bounds
I first read The Zoo Story when I was a student. Decades later, and after two years of living in New York City, I realized that Jerry was not so strange a character after all. In a city of millions, you can be on a crowded street, and feel all alone. And yet I believe that Life can be like that. So I wanted to produce this play to show that we’re all living in our own particular zoos – call it a career rut, call it the safety of a routine, or just call it, as I believe it applies to Jerry (and yours truly): the Human Ego: that thing in our minds which tells us that we’re isolated and unique. I believe that Mr Albee is wanting us to examine our lives, wherever we are right now, and look at that which is holding us back from being spontaneously, connectedly human. And then break free for a while to see what’s out there.​​