An interview with George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, writers of the upcoming Festival show The Three Little Pigs, about the ups and downs of writing for children, the insights gained from international productions and their upcoming performance in the Festival of New Musicals. Interview conducted by NAMT's Program Intern Audra LaBrosse.
NAMT: Three Little
Pigs is a familiar story to most people. During your writing, how did
you go about updating the tale and adding original touches?
George Stiles: Well, we did
a similar thing with Honk!, our re-take of The Ugly
Duckling. We enjoy making the characters as "human" as
possible, and updating the dialogue so it feels contemporary and classic all at
the same time! Family dynamics always interest us, how brothers and sisters
manage to get along with each other, even though they're often very different
characters. So with the Pigs, we liked the idea that the father of the family
had been "taken" by the Big Bad Wolf, so there's a tension from the
outset and makes the Mother a strong but put-upon figure who's had to raise her
piglets single-handed. We also thought a Wolf who reckoned he was "misunderstood"
was fun... after all, he's just doing what wolves do!
NAMT: This show is
part of a "trio of trilogies.” Tell us a bit more about that concept.
GS: That's all [Anthony’s]
fault. He's greedy. One's never enough. But what's great about it is that a
theatre can choose to "mix and match" the shows. The second is Goldilocks
and the Three Bears, which we premiered earlier this year - and the final
part will be The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Each is 45-50 minutes long, so
you can do 1, 2 or 3 of them with the same 5 actors, and design a simple set
that works for all three. That way, theatres can program the shows for daytime
or evening presentations.
NAMT: Can you tell us briefly
how you went about updating the other stories in the trilogy?
Anthony Drewe: Well we
haven't written The Three Billy Goats Gruff yet, but Goldilocks
And The Three Bears is ready to go and played very successfully in
Singapore earlier this year. Our self-imposed conundrum in writing the trilogy
was that we wanted it to be possible to perform all three shows with the same
five actors. In the story of Goldilocks there are traditionally
only 4 characters, but this limitation actually gave us our way into retelling
the story. We first meet Goldi as she
An interview with George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, writers of the upcoming Festival show The Three Little Pigs, about the ups and downs of writing for children, the insights gained from international productions and their upcoming performance in the Festival of New Musicals. Interview conducted by NAMT's Program Intern Audra LaBrosse. 
George Stiles: Well, we did
a similar thing with Honk!, our re-take of The Ugly
Duckling. We enjoy making the characters as "human" as
possible, and updating the dialogue so it feels contemporary and classic all at
the same time! Family dynamics always interest us, how brothers and sisters
manage to get along with each other, even though they're often very different
characters. So with the Pigs, we liked the idea that the father of the family
had been "taken" by the Big Bad Wolf, so there's a tension from the
outset and makes the Mother a strong but put-upon figure who's had to raise her
piglets single-handed. We also thought a Wolf who reckoned he was "misunderstood"
was fun... after all, he's just doing what wolves do!
