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The Elephant Man, a one-act play by American playwright Bernard Pomerance, was first produced in London at the Hampstead Theatre in 1977. The play transferred to New York and played Off-Broadway in 1979, moving to Broadway three months later, where it ran successfully for two years. The play won many awards with its Broadway debut, including a New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play, a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play, and the Tony Award for Best Play. A popular film adaptation (1980), directed by David Lynch and starring John Hurt (Merrick), Anthony Hopkins (Treves), and Anne Bancroft (Mrs. Kendal), received several British and American Academy Awards. The play has also been adapted for television (1982) and radio (1988) and has had two prominent Broadway revivals. The 2002 revival starred Billy Crudup (Merrick), Rupert Graves (Treves), and Kate Burton (Mrs. Kendal), and the 2014 revival starred Bradley Cooper (Merrick), Patricia Clarkson (Mrs. Kendal), and Alessandro Nivola (Treves).
The play is based on the true story of Joseph Merrick (renamed John in the play, aside from a nod to Merrick’s real name in the last scene), drawn from the details written in Frederick Treves’s The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences (1923).
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