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Lettice and Lovage

Full-Length Play, Comedy  /  3w, 2m

Peter Shaffer

Peter Shaffer’s riotous comedy – about a flamboyant tour guide who loves to embellish the history behind an English country house, infuriating the house’s stoic, conventional steward – earned Tony Awards for its two female leads, Maggie Smith and Margaret Tyzack.

Lettice and Lovage

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  • Cast Size
    Cast Size
    3w, 2m
  • Duration
    Duration
    120 minutes (2 hours)
  • Audience
    Target Audience
    Adult
Accolades
Accolades
  • Nominee: Four 1990 Tony Awards, including Best Play
    Nominee: Two 1987 Olivier Awards, including Play of the Year

Details

Summary

Lettice Duffet, an expert on Elizabethan cuisine and medieval weaponry, is an indefatigable but daffy enthusiast of history and the theatre. As a tour guide at Fustian House, one of the least stately of London’s stately homes, she theatrically embellishes its historical past, ultimately coming up on the radar of Lotte Schon, an inspector from the Preservation Trust. Neither impressed or entertained by Lettice’s freewheeling history lessons, Schon fires her. Not one to go without a fight, Lettice engages the stoic, conventionial Lotte in a battle to the death of all that is sacred to the Empire and the crown. This hit by the author of Equus and Amadeus featured a triumphant, award-winning performance by Dame Maggie Smith in London and on Broadway.

History
Lettice and Lovage was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Bath, on 6 October 1987, and subsequently at the Globe Theatre, London, on 27 October 1987. Directed by Michael Blakemore, the production starred Maggie Smith and Margaret Tyzack. The play ran for 768 performances at the Globe, marking one of the longer runs in London theatrical history. After some slight alterations, Lettice and Lovage made its American premiere on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on 25 March 1990. Again directed by Blakemore and starring Smith and Tyzack, the Broadway production earned four 1990 Tony Award nominations, including Best Play and Best Director, with Smith and Tyzack winning for Best Actress and Best Featured Actress in a Play.
Keywords
Performing Groups
  • Time Period 1990s
  • Setting A grand hall, an office, a basement flat. 1990.
  • Features Contemporary Costumes/Street Clothes
  • Duration 120 minutes (2 hours)

Media

“An evening of enchantment and delight.” – New York Post

“Hilarious.” – USA Today

“A celebration of the imagination, a celebration of the art of the theatre.” – New York Daily News

“One of the sharpest, wittiest, most passionate and elegant plays of the year.” – London Sunday Express

Licensing & Materials

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Authors

Peter Shaffer

Peter Shaffer

Sir Peter Shaffer, in full, Sir Peter Levin Shaffer (1926-2016), was a British playwright of considerable range who moved easily from farce to the portrayal of human anguish.

Educated at St. Paul’s and Trinity College, Cambridge, Shaffer first worked for a music publisher and ...

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