Washington and Lee University
Adult $13, Senior $11, Active Military $5, Student $5, W&L Faculty & Staff $9, W&L Student $5
Box Office hours:
Monday - Friday, 9-11 a.m.,
2-4 p.m.and two hours before each ticketed performance
(540) 458-8000
Written by George Bernard Shaw
Directed by Rob Mish '76
Written by George Bernard Shaw in 1893, Mrs. Warren's Profession is a play centering on the relationship between Mrs. Kitty Warren and her daughter, Vivie. But, as one might expect in a Shaw play, this is not a normal mother/daughter bonding since Mrs. Warren is a highly successful madam with a string of highly successful "hotels" throughout western Europe. This success has allowed her, much to her daughter's discovery and dismay, to give Vivie a Cambridge education. The two have the benefit of a brief reconciliation where morality is tossed about like a game of cricket, for Vivie believes that her mother's dastardly deeds have come to an end. Mrs. Warren, however, can't seem to let the profits go.
Shaw said he wrote the play "to draw attention to the truth that prostitution is caused, not by female depravity and male licentiousness, but simply by underpaying, undervaluing, and overworking women so shamefully that the poorest of them are forced to resort to prostitution to keep body and soul together."
It is our pleasure to announce that the first Sessoms Visiting Artist is Grant Aleksander, an accomplished actor in his own right and a recent graduate of Washington and Lee University. The public will probably best remember him as Phillip Spaulding on daytime's Guiding Light, but now he returns to the W&L stage as Sir George Crofts, a foil to both Kitty and Vivie Warren. Aleksander will also lend his expertise as dialect and acting coach.
Sponsored in part by the Richard B. Sessoms Visiting Artists Fund for Theater.
