1. What is the piece about?
   A girl decides she wants more from life and embarks on intellectual study. After an eventful and soul-searching journey, she discovers the immensely rich world of literature and gains the power and self-confidence necessary to change her life. Frank makes her journey challenging for her with his infatuation and his cynicism. The message is moral one: Education liberates and wisdom is good for mankind.
2. The vision/concept
   Two very different creatures from very different worlds come together and the chemical reaction resulting from the fusion between these two inflammable bodies is dramatic, volatile and colourful. At the end of the process, the two creatures separate but now both are different. Each has taken on elements of the other.
3. The Style
   Given the set/costume limitations of this kind of touring theatre, I want to go for something as visual and physical as possible. The piece must take risks. It must be sexy and bold.
   
   We can use colour, light, costume, music, sound, and accessories as symbols and metaphors which are specific to each of the characters. We can create our own physical / movement vocabulary to characterise the two protagonists and to highlight the psychological changes which take place in their hearts and minds during the story. I think we should go for setting it as a contemporary piece. I think we can just about get away with it.
4. The Staging
   The venues will be large and it will usually possible to divide the stage into a large central area which represents Frank's Office, and separately lit areas to the sides which would represent the corridor outside the office on one side, and Rita's home on the other. This will give us an opportunity to break out of the office at times, and to see Rita existing in her own word. I plan to use the audience as students in a lecture theatre for at least one scene, so that Frank can walk into the audience, hand out essays and interact with the audience before being interrupted by Rita at the commencement of the scene.
5. Set, costumes and props
   As the tour is long and there will be several plane trips, I plan to create a very light and portable set. A desk and three chairs will be provided by each venue. I hope to create a very light structure - maybe from card or material, to create one bookcase. This will also act as clear physical division between office and corridor outside and be useful for doorways and entrances. No other set will be needed. Everything else will be achieved through costume/props/accessories, lighting, sound and fabulous acting skill…
   
   Rita's journey can be defined by what we see her wearing. Does she go from pretty to plain? Painted doll to Liberal Democrat? Stilettos to Doc Martins and dungarees? Frank can stay in the same clothes and change the odd cardigan from time to time. But if Rita was colourful and Frank was grey at the beginning, maybe they've swapped by the end.
   
   Her journey can also be defined by the music she hears and short bursts of loud sound track could be played between scenes.

Willy Russell
Willy Russell was born in 1947 at Whiston near Liverpool. There was a strong tradition of storytelling in his family, who were 'thinking' working class. His school career in the 'D Stream' was undistinguished. At fifteen he left with one 'O' Level, in English Language, with little idea of what he wanted to do beyond a vague notion of wanting to become a writer. He was unsure of how to enter that world, so he drifted into hairdressing. Subsequently he spent more time writing songs than setting hair. Eventually he left and worked in several industrial jobs before deciding to return to full-time education.

It was whilst at St. Catherine's College of Education that he decided to become a dramatist. His first play, KEEP YOUR EYES DOWN, was taken by the college drama group to the Edinburgh Fringe in 1972. There it was seen by John McGrath who put Russell in touch with the Everyman. The following year, WHEN THE REDS led to his writing a play for the Everyman's Touring Company, SAM O' SHANKER. 1973 also saw his first play for BBC TV, KING OF THE CASTLE, set in a factory.

His major break came with his next play, JOHN, PAUL, GEORGE, RINGO AND BERT. It was an accurate and honest account of the group's rise and fall, culminating in an abortive attempt to stage a reunion concert and its success enabled him to give up teaching and concentrate on writing full-time. The show was notable for the ironic juxtaposition of songs against dialogue, and the sparkling Liverpool humour that has since become his trademark. The use of a narrator was a technique that was to reappear in his next stage play, DEATH OF A YOUNG, YOUNG MAN (1975), and again in BLOOD BROTHERS.

Russell has strong views on the working classes' attempts to gain access to middle-class culture. "Whilst the working-classes are accused of being philistines, there is a general attempt in this country to withhold culture from them... Literature is an invention by the middle-classes for their own benefit. The working-classes haven't accepted literacy yet, which is why it is so difficult teaching working-class kids whose traditions are in the spoken word. That's why I write for the theatre, because it's concerned with the spoken rather than the written word."

There is a compassionate core in Russell's work that can best be seen in his endearing and sympathetic presentation of life's losers, all of whom have an epic sense of their own importance. Through his writing it is possible to feel a sense of his characters' aspirations and their failed and foiled dreams. However, unlike the characters he creates, Willy Russell doesn't have an epic sense of his own importance. What sustains and characterises his best work is a raging, bitter sense of injustice.

Educating Rita is his most well known play and was successfully made into an Oscar-nominated movie starring Michael Caine and Julie Walters.