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The Women of Lockerbie

Full-Length Play, Drama  /  5w, 2m

Deborah Brevoort

Seven years after the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 terrorist bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, a mother from New Jersey comes to Scotland hoping to find some of her son’s remains.

The Women of Lockerbie

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  • Cast Size
    Cast Size
    5w, 2m
  • Duration
    Duration
    105 Minutes
  • Audience
    Target Audience
    Adult
Accolades
Accolades

  • Winner! 2005 Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award 
    Winner! 2001 Onassis International Playwriting Competition Silver Medal

The Women of Lockerbie

Details

Summary

A mother from New Jersey roams the hills of Lockerbie, Scotland, looking for her son’s remains seven years after he was lost in the crash of Pan Am 103. She meets the women of Lockerbie, who are fighting the U.S. government to obtain the clothing of the victims found in the plane’s wreckage. The women, determined to convert an act of hatred into an act of love, want to wash the clothes of the dead and return them to the victim’s families. 

The Women of Lockerbie is loosely inspired by a true story, although the characters and situations in the play are purely fictional. Written in the structure of a Greek tragedy, it is a poetic drama about the triumph of love over hate.

History

The Women of Lockerbie premiered off-Broadway in a co-production by the New Group Theatre and Women’s Project on 6 April 2003, starring Judith Ivey. The play premiered in the UK at The Donmar Warehouse in 2005.

Keywords
Performing Groups

MADELINE LIVINGSTON – A suburban housewife from New Jersey. Her twenty-year-old son, Adam, was killed in the Pan Am 103 crash over Lockerbie, Scotland.
BILL LIVINGSTON – Her husband, father of Adam.
OLIVE ALLISON – An older woman, from Lockerbie. Leader of the laundry project.*
WOMAN 1 and WOMAN 2 – Middle-aged women, from Lockerbie.*
HATTIE – A cleaning woman, from Lockerbie.
GEORGE JONES – The American government representative in charge of the warehouse storing the remains from the Pan Am 103 crash.

Author’s note: Producers are encouraged to increase the size of the women’s chorus when possible. If this is done, simply take the lines for Woman 1 and 2 and reassign them among the larger group.

  • Time Period 1990s
  • Features Contemporary Costumes/Street Clothes
  • Additional Features No Intermission
  • Duration 105 Minutes

Media

“A moving, thoughtful exploration of how grief changes over time.” – The New Yorker

“Catches the grim mood [of a terrorist attack] better than anything I’ve yet seen on the subject of 9/11 and its aftermath. In its tightly controlled depiction of collective sorrow, it becomes almost unbearably moving.” – The Telegraph

“Playwright Deborah Brevoort has a gift for high poetry and her descriptions of the day when death came raining down on Scotland are impressively moving… endowed with character, poetry and a core of touching emotion.” – Time Out London

“Gives powerful voice to a disturbingly contemporary anguish: how to respond to suffering caused by a terrorist attack… the play has the power to move an audience to new hope in a world witnessing continual acts of revenge and hatred.” – Sydney Morning Herald

“This finely honed play has the formal beauty of a Greek tragedy. The result is a play where not a minute is wasted in verbiage – where you are gripped from the opening moment and not released until the end.” – Green Left Weekly (Australia)

Videos

  • The Women of Lockerbie – Station Theatre Trailer youtube thumbnail

    The Women of Lockerbie – Station Theatre Trailer

Licensing & Materials

  • Minimum Fee: £55 per performance plus VAT when applicable.

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Authors

Deborah Brevoort

Deborah Brevoort

Deborah Brevoort is the author of numerous plays and musicals, including The Women of Lockerbie, which won the silver medal in the Onassis International Playwriting competition and the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award. It was produced off-Broadway, in London a ...

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