Mary Ann "Buzz" Goodbody (died 1975), was an English theatre director. She was educated at Roedean and the University of Sussex. A product of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s, Goodbody regarded herself a radical and a revolutionary and joined the feminist and communist movements of the day. Very early in her theatrical career, she adapted and staged Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground.

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  • Mary Ann "Buzz" Goodbody (died 1975), was an English theatre director. She was educated at Roedean and the University of Sussex. A product of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s, Goodbody regarded herself a radical and a revolutionary and joined the feminist and communist movements of the day. Very early in her theatrical career, she adapted and staged Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground. This production won an award at the National Student Drama Festival and eventually transferred to the West End. As a result of her success, she was offered a position with the Royal Shakespeare Company, where she signed up as an associate director. She thus became the first ever female director to work at the RSC. (A Century of Women, Sheila Rowbotham, page 408) Her productions in Stratford (King John, Occupations, etc) were noted for their radical content. In 1974, Goodbody played an instrumental role in establishing The Other Place, a small studio theatre in Stratford. It was put forth as an alternative to the traditional Royal Shakespeare Theatre and became highly regarded for its challenging versions of canonical plays. The Other Place was demolished in 1989. At the Other Place, Goodbody staged King Lear in 1974 and Hamlet in 1975. Of the latter, the Times theatre critic Irving Wardle wrote: "an astounding revelation of the most excavated play in the world, ranking with Peter Brook's A Midsummer Night's Dream as the key classical production of the decade".
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  • Mary Ann "Buzz" Goodbody (died 1975), was an English theatre director. She was educated at Roedean and the University of Sussex. A product of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1960s, Goodbody regarded herself a radical and a revolutionary and joined the feminist and communist movements of the day. Very early in her theatrical career, she adapted and staged Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground.
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  • Buzz Goodbody
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