"I Take Your Hand in Mine" - A Play Inspired by Chekhov’s Letters

"I Take Your Hand in Mine..."A play suggested by the love letters of Anton Chekhov and Olga Knipper Written by: Carol Rocamora*Directed by: Dmitry ZhukovskyCASTAnton Chekhov ………………. Richard Sheridan WillisOlga Knipper …………………. Rena PolleyRunning time: 90 minutes with no intermission* I Take Your Hand in Mine by Carol Rocamora is published by Smith and Kraus Inc.I take your hand in mine… traces …

"I Take Your Hand in Mine..."
A play suggested by the love letters of Anton Chekhov and Olga Knipper

Written by: Carol Rocamora*
Directed by: Dmitry Zhukovsky
CAST
Anton Chekhov ………………. Richard Sheridan Willis
Olga Knipper …………………. Rena Polley
Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission

* I Take Your Hand in Mine by Carol Rocamora is published by Smith and Kraus Inc.
I take your hand in mine… traces the passionate relationship between playwright Anton Chekhov and actress Olga Knipper.
The correspondence that inspired the text – over 400 letters – documents the six-year relationship between the world-famous writer and the star of the Moscow Art Theatre.
During those six short years, circumstance – his health, her work – kept them apart for most of that time. He was banished to Yalta in the south for medical reasons; she was committed to Moscow for the theatre season.
Author Carol Rocamora weaves the letters into a passionate story of love, longing and despair. Embedded into the everyday are gems of theatre history and insights into Chekhov’s creative process. Anton Chekhov died at the age of 44 from tuberculosis and Olga Knipper died at the age of 90 in 1959.
She never remarried.

A NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR
Although based on the letters of Chekhov, I take your hand in mine... is not a play by Chekhov, it’s a play about Chekhov.
Yet working on the show we wanted to be truthful to Chekhov’s poetics, where the most important and interesting things happen not in the words but in-between them.