3 performers · 90 minutes
Bambino Mio: Bright Little Flame
Maria Montessori at seventy
Synopsis
On her seventieth birthday in wartime India, Maria Montessori, held under British restrictions as an enemy alien, works with her young assistant Githa on the story of her life.
At a glance
What a producer needs firstCast
3 performers
Running time
90 minutes
Genre
Historical drama
Technical demand
Low to moderate
Availability
Script on requestLicensed through Upstage Left Press
Characters
3 performers to cast
Narrator
Provides context and connective material.
Maria Montessori, 70
Revolutionary physician and educator.
Githa, 30
Montessori’s assistant, a native of Tamil Nadu.
Staging and technical requirementsLow to moderate
Flexible and representational, set on the Theosophical Society grounds in Adyar, Chennai. Minimal staging with a table, seating, and domestic objects. Sound design includes ambient India, period music, and wartime radio.
What you will need
- A company of 3 performers
- A slot of 90 minutes
- Technical capacity described as low to moderate
- A performance licence, granted separately from the script
Themes
What it is really aboutI write plays to entertain in the truest sense of the word: to give serious attention to people, questions, and histories that are too often pushed aside.Jeanmarie Simpson, artist statement
In the classroom
The natural choice for an education faculty or a teacher-training programme. Three performers, one set, and a subject every education student already studies in theory.
From the archive
Select any photograph to enlarge
Performance rights
Stage it
Rights are available for universities, schools, community theatres, festivals, workshops, staged readings, and independent productions.
If this one fits, so might these
Related playsClara Barton looks back across the wounds that shaped her life, from a brother’s childhood accident and Civil War battlefields to the Missing Soldiers…
Read the play
Solo drama
On Track
1 performer. Running time to be confirmed.
Brian, whose life has always run on the rhythms and systems of railways, traces the tracks through childhood, work, family, isolation, and connection. A…
In development Read the play
Contemporary drama
The Jewish Question
3 performers. 90 minutes.
After a massive peace march, two Jewish journalists spend the evening in Grace’s Venice kitchen for Shabbat. Over dinner, vodka, family history, politics, Israel…
Jewish Plays Project, Honorable Mention Read the play