Mother Courage is one of nine plays written by Bertolt Brecht in resistance to the rice of facism and Nazism. Said to have been written in a month in response to the invasion of Poland by the Adolf Hitler in 1939, Mother Courage is about the devastating effects of European war and the blindness those profiting from it.

Mother Courage is set during the Thirty Years’ War of 1618-1648, which involved Germany, France and Sweden, and follows the fortunes of Anna Fierling, nicknamed ‘Mother Courage’, who is a wily canteen woman with the Swedish Army and determined to make her living from the war. Over the course of the play, she loses all three of her children, Schweizerkas, Eilif and Kattrin, to the very war from which she tried to profit.

This production will keep to Brecht’s original intention to be representative of all war, and be set in a post-apocalyptic no mans land that represents the devastation of war. Mother Courage contains many songs, some by Kurt Weil - whilst it is musical theatre, it does not require skilled singers with many of the songs sung by ensemble characters. Some well known songs include Conquer Death, Song of Solomon, The Ballad of the Soldier’s Wife, and The Alabama Song, which have often been included in productions.

Content Warnings: Mother Courage contains a dramatised death and references of war and executions.

Mise-en-scene: Steen
Musical Directors: Sam Ferrier (he/him) & Maddi Ferrier (they/them)
Technical: Zachary Hanlon (they/them)
Publicity: Nick Kilpatrick (they/them)

Mother Courage - Cathy Bates (she/they)
Kattrin - Cyrus Fletcher (they/them)
Eilif - Thomas Roberts (he/him)
Swiss Cheese - Thomas Petersen (he/him)
The Chaplain - Andrew Gobran (he/him)
The Cook - Lajos Hamers (he/they)
Yvette Pottier - Gillian Meers (she/her)
The Company - Andrew Cremen (he/him), Brady Neilson (he/him), Byron Schipp (he/him), Christian Tagliaferro (he/him), Dylan Horvat (he/him), Frances Wiedersatz (she/her), Jack Cooper (he/him), Jackson Hawkins (he/him), Linda Tucker (she/her), Michael Emerson (he/him), Nicholas Olsen (he/they), Nick Kilpatrick (they/them), Nigel Pennington (he/him) & Taylah Narbeth-Whiting