GamePlan: In Brief
GamePlan
Play Number: 58World Premiere: 24 May 2001
Venue: Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough
Premiere Staging: In-the-round
Published: Samuel French
Other Media: No
Cast: 3m / 4f
Run Time: 2hr 10m
Synopsis: A teenage girl tries to alleviate her mother's financial problems by misguidedly setting herself up as an internet prostitute. When her first client dies though, Sorrell finds herself in more trouble than she ever imagined.
Note: GamePlan is part of the Damsels In Distress trilogy.
- GamePlan is Alan Ayckbourn's 58th play play.
- The world premiere - directed by Alan Ayckbourn - was held at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, on 24 May 2001.
- The London premiere - directed by Alan Ayckbourn - was held at the Duchess Theatre on 7 September 2002.
- Damsels In Distress is one of only two trilogies written by Alan Ayckbourn; the other being The Norman Conquests (1973). It is occasionally incorrectly stated that Alan Ayckbourn's three supernatural plays (Haunting Julia, Snake In The Grass and Life & Beth) also comprise a trilogy, but the playwright himself does not consider them to be a trilogy.
- The plays are set in riverside apartments in London's Docklands, where Alan Ayckbourn himself owned an apartment.
- GamePlan and FlatSpin were conceived as a duology to be played in repertory. The plays only became a trilogy when during rehearsals for FlatSpin, Alan Ayckbourn announced to the company he had had an idea for a third play for the company which became RolePlay.
- The plays were written to be performed by the same cast of seven (three male / four females) on the same set; although the set does represent three different apartments and there is no narrative link or recurring characters in the three plays.
- The trilogy marked the final time - as of writing - that Alan Ayckbourn has allowed his latest play to transfer directly to London's West End. Since 2002, no plays written after the Damsels In Distress trilogy have been performed in the West End due to Alan's anger at the treatment of the trilogy in the West End. There have been revivals of earlier work though since 2007.
- GamePlan was described by Alan Ayckbourn as a 'straight play' as opposed to the FlatSpin's 'thriller' and RolePlay's 'dark farce'.
- The actress Alison Pargeter won the Best Newcomer in the 2003 Critics' Circle Theatre Awards for her roles in the trilogy.
- The correct title for the play is GamePlan - one word with the 'G and 'P' capitalised. It is not correct to market them either as Game Plan or Gameplan.
- Although published as a play text by Samuel French, GamePlan was also published in the collection Damsels in Distress (Faber).