Phoenix of Madrid
Don Pedro has it all – high position, wealth, a beautiful family – and enjoys the good life in the heart of the Spanish capital. But now he faces a challenge that would test the patience of a saint. It is time to marry off his daughters. It’s bad enough that his eldest Beatriz is both obsessed by the latest fashions and talks like a university professor, but his youngest Leonor is already enjoying illicit midnight trysts with her lover and is in no mood to accept an arranged marriage. Throw into this explosive mix the extravagant young man about town, Don Alonso, who thinks all women, like all plays, are excellent on the first night and boring on the second, and you have the recipe for an hilarious comedy that reaches out effortlessly across the centuries.
Pedro Calderón de la Barc was a dramatist, poet and writer of the Spanish Golden Age. During certain periods of his life he was also a soldier and a Roman Catholic priest. Appreciated the world over, Calderon is thought of as one of Spain's foremost dramatists.
Laurence Boswell is a leading writer and director in the British theatre scene. As an Associate Director at the RSC he curated and directed the RSC’s Golden Age Season in 2004, which later transferred to the West End and to Madrid. He has also worked at a number of regional theatres and internationally. Laurence was appointed Artistic Director of the Ustinov Studio, Theatre Royal Bath at the beginning of 2011.