Presented by - Nonentities (A)

Location - Main House

Standard Ticket Prices

Curtain Up 7.30pm

Mary Coyle Chase

Born in 1906 and raised in Denver, Colorado, Mary Coyle Chase was a playwright and children’s storywriter. At the age of 18, she began working at the Rocky Mountain News, covering high society events,crime, disasters, and sports. While raising three boys, she wrote the Broadway smash hit, “Harvey”. In 1945, she won the Pulitzer Prize for theatre for “Harvey”. In later years, she collaborated in writing the screenplay for the Universal film version of “Harvey”, starring James Stewart, and wrote children’s stories, including Loretta Mason Potts and The Wicked Pidgeon Ladies in the Garden. She also wrote a number of plays, none of which achieved the success of “Harvey”. In her later years, there were a number of attempts to transform “Harvey” into a musical, which unfortunately did not succeed.

She remained in Denver until her death in 1981.

Director’s Notes

Mary Coyle Chase’s Harvey has been an American favorite since it was first brought to the Broadway stage in 1944. Before it opened, there were not very high expectations: the author had only written one play previously, which had been a quick failure. Harold Lloyd, Edward Everett Horton, Robert Benchley, and Jack Haley all turned down the lead role before Frank Fay accepted it. Fay, a retired vaudeville actor, astounded the critics with his performance. The play won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1944, and its initial run lasted for four years - 1,775 performances. It has continually been revived around the globe since then. It was also adapted to film in 1950, starring Hollywood legend James Stewart, and has become one of Stewart’s best-loved films.

The story is about Elwood P. Dowd, a good-natured, mild-mannered eccentric who is known in all of the cafeterias and saloons in his small town. Elwood is polite and cheerful and always friendly toward any strangers he might encounter, and he has just one problematic character trait: his best friend is an invisible six-foot-tall rabbit, Harvey. Wherever he goes, he brings an extra hat and coat for Harvey, and he buys theater tickets and railroad tickets in twos so that they can go everywhere together. His sister and her daughter try to have Elwood committed to the local sanitarium, where the behavior of the prominent psychologist and his staff raise the age old question of who is more dangerous to society: the easy-going dreamer with a vivid imagination or the people who want him to conform to the accepted version of reality.

Press Release
‘Mad Hatter of a Play’

Elwood P Dowd has a wonderful friend, Harvey, who shares the trials and tribulations of his life. His sister does not approve. Why? Because Harvey is a 6’1’’ tall white rabbit that only Elwood can see!

Mary Coyle Chase's Harvey has been an American favorite since it was first brought to the Broadway stage in 1944, the year it won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. It has continually been revived around the globe since then and was also adapted to film in 1950, starring Hollywood legend James Stewart, and has become one of Stewart's best-loved films.

It is a play that explores the intensity of a good friendship and about the fine dividing line between honest fantasy and delusional reality. It also illustrates changing times in society when such behaviour , previously thought of a criminal and treated as such, was now being viewed more sympathetically. This was since the teachings of Sigmund Freud were being absorbed into the collective American consciousness.

Subtext aside it is a delightful play to be enjoyed on many levels by all ages. It is the last production to be staged by the Nonentities to round off the 25th Anniversay Season and has Stan Barten, one of the society’s greatest comic actors and audience favourites, playing Elwood P Dowd , plus an excellent supporting cast to fit the occasion. Laugh your way into summer with this classic piece of comedy.