The Glass Menagerie, MADC's first play of the season

The Glass Menagerie, the classic play by Tennessee Williams about a dysfunctional family struggling to survive during the depression era, is MADC's curtain raiser for the 2002-2003 season. It will be staged on October 4, 5 and 6 at the Manoel Theatre.

Inspired by many events in his life, The Glass Menagerie focuses on the attempts of a woman and her two children to improve their dreary, tragic lives.

At the centre of the events is Tom, a shoe salesman and a poet, who constantly dreams about a better future and escaping the dull life he leads, while at the same time reluctant to leave his mother and disabled sister behind.

His mother, Amanda, lives in the past, desperate to give her daughter Laura the type of glorious childhood she herself had.

Laura is a painfully shy young woman, who chooses to spend most of her time in the world of her glass animal collection.

Jim O' Connor is a pleasant, ordinary young man who Tom introduces to Laura in the vain hope of bringing her out of her shell.

It is a play about faded Southern beauties, despairing youngsters and shattered dreams, a piece of work so charged with emotion that it will move even the hardest of hearts.

MADC has assembled a fine cast for the play which is directed by Harry Borg.

Mikhail Basmadjian plays the young Tom, Marylu Coppini his mother Amanda, Louiselle Vassallo is the frail Laura, while Stefan Cachia Zammit plays the pleasant, ordinary young Gentleman Caller, Jim O' Connor.

Tickets are now on sale at the Manoel Theatre booking office.