Adapted by Maggie Contreras
Directed by Nicolette Lee Roberts
Designed by Carl Gudenius
Lighting by David M. Robinson

Cast in order of appearance
Joan Wyndham – Maggie Contreras

The UK premiere of a new play based on the diaries and memoirs of Joan Wyndham.

Sundays and Mondays, 28 April, 4 and 5 May 2008

“My life was certainly not dull. As a teenage Catholic virgin, my days were largely spent in trying to remain one. And my nights in trying to stay alive. It was a strange time, frightening, but exhilarating! And I felt the urge to write it all down so as never to forget.” Joan Wyndham

In 1940 at the height of the Blitz, Joan Wyndham was eighteen years old - a young, upper class art student, living in the heart of Little Chelsea’s Bohemian centre. With brutal honesty, Joan takes us with her on a personal journey of love and war - coupling her vivacious stories of life, love and growing up in war-ravaged Bohemian London with a unique and fascinating glimpse into the past of the Finborough Theatre’s immediate area.

“You have no idea how terrifying it can be to sit…only 10 yards away from a lovely young girl pretending to be you!! Luckily it was far from embarrassing - her performance was both touching and funny and I could recognize me and my awful behavior in much of it” Joan Wyndham

Joan Wyndham’s four published books of diaries and memoirs have been heard on BBC Radio and much anthologised. She led a rich and varied life - opening Oxford’s first espresso bar, running a hippy restaurant in the Portobello Road, as well as cooking at major pop festivals and for the actors at the Royal Court Theatre. She also worked in Fleet Street on women’s magazines and as a food and wine critic in London and New York. She died in April 2007, leaving behind a husband, two daughters, two cats, and a home off the Fulham Road, just two minutes’ walk away from the Finborough Theatre.

Actress and Adaptor Maggie Contreras is based in Los Angeles. She trained at the George Washington University, followed by postgraduate studies in Hollywood and in London under Richard Digby Day. Love Lessons has already toured the US, premiering in Washington DC in 2006.

Director Nicolette Lee has worked as an actor, director and teacher of acting for over twenty-five years. She was Head of the School of Theatre at Manchester Polytechnic and has taught acting and directed in drama schools as a regular staff member at Guildford School of Acting and the Royal College of Music. She has been a visiting teacher and director at Bretton Hall, RADA, the Welsh College, the State Theatre School in Aarhus, Denmark, and the University of California, Riverside. The lighting is designed by Emmy nominee David M. Robinson. Designer Carl Gudenius’ work has been seen throughout the USA as well as on major American TV networks.