Anne Engel studied languages and then worked as an actress with small-scale companies like West London Theatre Workshop and Mikron before becoming involved in the women’s movement. She was a founder member of Women’s Theatre Group appearing in such plays as Fantasia, Out on the Costa del Trico and Pretty Ugly. She went on to form Mrs Worthington’s Daughters with Stacey Charlesworth, Maggie Wilkinson, director Julie Holledge and others rediscovering and reviving forgotten plays by women including Susannah Cibber’s The Oracle, Githa Sowerby’s Rutherford and Son and Muriel Box’s Angels of War. They also staged (as Mrs Worthington’s Daughters’ Daughters) the feminist soap opera (complete with live ads) Wyre’s Cross (scripted by Masters and Griffith). She now works as a consultant on arts and young people
For more images of Mrs Worthington’s Daughters productions click to their page here.
Extracts from the interview:
Women’s Theatre Group’s first production, Fantasia
‘The first show at Oval House that got us off the ground was a mad show called Fantasia which explored the fantasies of two very different women. It’s quite interesting when you look back because that whole time was seen as extremely puritanical and repressive and the show was absolutely not that – I mean I took my clothes off in that show! and that was the first Women’s Theatre Group show – it had nudity. It was a lot about body image and women’s aspirations and feelings about themselves. It was much broader than subsequent things… It had songs, very multi media, wildly ambitious, we brought everything in.’
Starting Mrs Worthington’s Daughters
Equity Women’s Committee
Detailed Topics List of those covered in the interview
See Viewing Interviews for details of where to view the whole interview
Bibliography:
Plays produced by Mrs Worthington’s Daughters:
The Oracle by Susannah Cibber, J. Roberts, 1752
In the Workhouse by Margaret Wynne Nevinson in Votes for Women and Other Plays ed. Susan Croft, Aurora Metro, 2009
Aurora Leigh adapted from Elizabeth Barratt Browning’s poem by Michelene Wandor in Plays by Women Vol. 1 ed. Wandor, Methuen, 1982
Angels of War by Muriel Box in War Plays by Women ed. Claire Tylee et al, Routledge, 1999
Alison’s House by Susan Glaspell in Six Plays, Victor Gollancz, 1930
Wyre’s Cross (30th anniversary edition) by Peta Masters and Geraldine Griffith (Lulu, 2012)
Links:
Mrs Worthington’s Daughters archive material is at Bristol University