Have you ever wondered what was going through the writer’s mind when they were creating some of the world’s best-loved film and theatre scripts? Well, now is your chance to find out.
Good Chance Theatre are currently holding an auction where theatre-enthusiasts, collectors and any other nosey member of general public will have the rare opportunity to get their hands on personally annotated first-edition copies of beloved film and theatre texts.
The charity auction, titled Out of the Margins, is running until October 6. It features the largest collection of annotated play texts and scripts in theatre history. Not bad, hey?
Fifty of the world’s greatest screenwriters, playwrights and lyricists donated their iconic texts, all of which feature the intimate thoughts, memories and anecdotes that were jotted down in the margins during the creative process. The lucky highest bidders have the unique behind-the-scenes glimpse into some of the most significant moments in the last fifty years of film and theatre.
From Jez Butterworth‘s original script of Jerusalem and a rare boxed edition of Tom Stoppard‘s award-winning Leopoldstadt to the first edition hardback of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child; these one-of-a-kind texts are each scribbled with deeply moving thoughts and reflections, giving the reader a true piece of theatrical history to treasure forever.
This auction is being hosted by the Auction Collective and is in collaboration with Christie’s Auction House. A free exhibition of selected texts are on public display at Christie’s until September 28.
All proceeds of the Out of the Margins charity auction will fund Good Chance Theatre‘s mission to provide opportunities to refugee artists in the UK and support the next generation of revolutionary writers.
Highlights from the Out of the Margins auction include:
- A heavily annotated rarely available boxed first edition of Leopoldstadt by Tom Stoppard, awarded Best New Play at the 2023 Tony Awards
- Nobel prize winner Wole Soyinka’s annotations of a first edition of his adaptation of The Bacchae of Euripides
- A fully annotated first edition of the Barber Shop Chronicles by Inua Ellams
- Jack Thorne’s notes on a first edition hardback of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
- Annotations of some of the best-loved musicals such as Wicked (Winnie Holzman), Mean Girls (Tina Fey), Six the Musical (Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss) and Matilda the Musical (Dennis Kelly)
- V (formerly Eve Ensler)’s annotations of a rare edition of The Vagina Monologues that was printed only for the first ever V Day event in 1998
- Annotations of scripts of screenplays and films including Love, Actually by Richard Curtis and The Theory of Everything by Anthony McCarten.
The online auction will run from September 15 – October 6, 2023 and the free exhibition will run from September 20 – September 28, 2023.
Find out more on how to register to bid and take part in the auction here.