“Yep, you heard it here first. Judy Garland is Closed for Business. Thank you, goodnight.”
Enthralled as a child by the joy and anguish of her extraordinary voice, Susie grows up dreaming of all things Judy Garland. The troubled star becomes a friend she can confide in and her presence will ultimately bring Susie through the darkest days of her life.
Adapted from the autobiographical memoir by Susie Boyt, My Judy Garland Life blends fact and fiction to evoke the imagined relationship between a fan and a star. Susie’s magical journey takes us from the MGM schoolroom to a midnight rendezvous between a fragile Judy and a group of London cabbies, who take care of the star in her own hour of need.
Cast: 2f/3m, multi-roling & musical skills
Script and licensing enquiries
Facts & Figures
Sally Ann Triplett was nominated for a UK Theatre Award for her portrayal of Judy Garland
Judy Garland was an actress and singer who Fred Astaire described as ‘the greatest entertainer who ever lived’.
A child star, her career spanned 45 or her 47 years. In 1938, at the age of sixteen, she was cast in The Wizard of Oz.
My Judy Garland Life: Nottingham Playhouse
Reviews
My Judy Garland Life
“There is a warmth, an eccentricity, and a sorrow at the eternal paradox of how a star who feels herself to be a void can fill the emptiness in her listeners, offering comfort she never finds. And a final explosion of showmanship asks us, with all humility, to consider allowing the strings of our own hearts to go zing. So yes, mine did.”
“One deceptively simple scene is set late at night in a London taxi-rank cafe. Garland sings Over the Rainbow, jokingly, for the cabbies, ironically commenting, through the song, on her own fame, on her voice, on the power it had over others and its power over her, too.”
“A stunning piece … a strangely surreal and complex narrative that sets it quite apart from the straightforward flattering biopic.”