BEN ELTON POPCORN A PLAY ABOUT RESPONSIBILITY THE

THE ENGLISH THEATRE CLUB E.V.
For news, pics, and your personal email reminder of
our oncoming productions, go to www.etc-ev.de
(Wayne Hudson, serial killer)
„No matter how guilty you are, you can still be innocent.
Always assuming, of course, you‘ve got an excuse.“
(Scott Adams, cartoonist)
„I used to be incensed over the fact that celebrities
could literally kill people, then go to court and get
away with murder. Then I became a minor celebrity
and my opinion started to change.
I’m not famous enough to get away with premeditated murder, but it’s my ultimate goal. At my current
level of fame I figure the most I could get away with
is maybe a vigorous bludgeoning, or perhaps some
high spirited groping. Those free passes could come
in handy someday, but it’s not the same as knowing
you can whack someone if you feel like it“
THE ENGLISH THEATRE CLUB E.V.
INC
L
VIO . 8 M
UR
LE
LAN NCE, DERS
GU SEX , DR
U
AG
U
E A ALLY G AB
ND
U
E
AC XPLI SE,
TIO
C
NS IT
.
A PLAY ABOUT RESPONSIBILITY
POPCORN
BEN ELTON
Please note: There is, inevitably, some violence and
explicit language. But nothing kids would not see on
afternoon TV or hear in the school yard.
Performance Rights: Samuel French, London
Thanks to Benn Folien Hanau, Sinus AV Tonstudio
Frankfurt, Aeon Medienproduktion Hanau, Medienzentrum Hanau, Damir Micic and our patient families.
Opening February 10th, 2006
at the Olof-Palme-Haus, Hanau
Direction ........................................ Peter Strauss
Language coach ............................Kerstin Hailer
Sound ............................................. Peter Strauss
Light ...............................................Kerstin Hailer
Stage, costumes, props ................. Britta Wessel
Karl Brezner, producer ................ Volker Degler
Bruce Delamitri, director ............Frank Postberg
Velvet, his daughter ...................... Britta Wessel
Farrah, his wife ........................Gerta Rebentisch
Wayne Hudson.................................Michael Wolf
Scout ...................................... Cihan-Belgin Torun
Brooke Daniels ................................ Sabine Botte
Kirsten ........................................Melanie Gabriel
Bill ....................................... Marc Oliver Schnell
Cast
»Popcorn« was published 1996 as a novel and almost
immediately adapted for the stage. It won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy in 1998.
stand-up comedian before he turned to writing.
Apart from acclaimed novels and plays (»Gasping«,
»Silly Cow«), he has been the pen behind Mr. Bean
(in the TV Series »Blackadder«), Andrew Lloyd Webber Musicals (»The Beautiful Game«) and the Musical about rock legend Queen (»We Will Rock You«).
Ben Elton, born 1959 near London, started off as
So »Popcorn« does not give you the „right“ answers.
But it‘s asking the right questions in the right style
– at least for our decade.
Like all deeply human questions, they cannot be
answered once and for all. They keep popping up
with every new generation, with every new type of
media. They popped up in the 18th century, when the
novel »Werther« was said to make people suicidal.
They popped up only recently, when violent video
games and splatter movies were linked to school
massacres in the United States as well as in Germany.
ficly, does violence in the media inspire violence in
real life? And if it does – who is then responsible for
the damage that is done?
Can media change our behaviour or, more speci-