• The Play and Its Context

  • Introduction
  • Character Profiles
  • Concept Vocabulary
  • Elizabeth Packard Biography
  • Historical Timeline-Events Surrounding Mrs. Packard
  • Mental Illness in the 19th Century
  • Insane Asylums Unveiled
  • Women and the Law

• About This Production

  • Who’s Who in the Production
  • Rights and Wrongs: Talking with Emily Mann about Mrs. Packard
  • Emily Mann Biography

• Drama in the Classroom

  • Educators’ Introduction
  • Core Curriculum Standards
  • Pre-Show Preparation, Questions for Discussion and Activities
  • Post-Show Questions for Discussion and Activities

• Additional Resources

EMILY MANN is in her seventeenth season as Artistic Director of McCarter Theatre, where she is also the resident playwright.  Ms. Mann wrote and directed Having Our Say, adapted from the book by Sarah L. Delany and A. Elizabeth Delany with Amy Hill Hearth, which had its world premiere at McCarter Theatre prior to its successful run on Broadway, a national tour and a production at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg, South Africa. The Broadway production was nominated for three Tony awards, an Outer Critics and a Drama Desk award.  Ms. Mann also wrote the teleplay for Having Our Say which aired as a Kraft Premiere Movie on CBS TV April 18, 1999 and received a Peabody Award, a Christopher Award and a nomination for outstanding achievement in television and radio by the Writers Guild of America.  Ms. Mann wrote and directed Meshugah, adapted from the story by Isaac Bashevis Singer, which had its world premiere at McCarter and was recently produced Off-Broadway.  Her play, Greensboro (A Requiem), had its world premiere at McCarter in 1997.  She received an Obie Award for her direction of the New York run of Edward Albee’s All Over with Rosemary Harris.  Ms. Mann made her Broadway debut as a playwright and director with Execution of Justice, for which she received a Bay Area Theatre Critics Award, a Playwriting Award from the Women’s Committee of the Dramatists Guild, a Burns Mantle Yearbook Best Play Citation, and a Drama Desk nomination.  Her play, Still Life, premiered at the Goodman Theatre, and opened Off-Broadway under her direction in 1981, winning six Obie Awards, including Distinguished Playwriting and Distinguished Directing.  Her first play, Annulla, An Autobiography, premiered at The Guthrie Theater and was produced at The New Theatre of Brooklyn with Linda Hunt.  A recipient of the prestigious Hull-Warriner Award and the Edward Albee Last Frontier Directing Award, Ms. Mann is a member of the Dramatists Guild and serves on its Council.  A collection of her plays, Testimonies: Four Plays, has been published by Theatre Communications Group, Inc.