Mary's Babies (NHB Modern Plays)

Mary Barton, a pioneer of fertility treatment, thought her husband was perfect. And doesn't every child deserve the perfect father? So Mary used her husband's sperm to impregnate up to a thousand women, and then burnt all the records. A thousand resulting children, the 'Barton Brood', with no idea about their shared father. Meeting each other. Making friends. Having babies.

Maud Dromgoole's play Mary's Babies is based on the true story of Mary Barton and the Barton Brood, researched through surveys and interviews. Provocative, funny, and fascinating, it imagines a series of encounters between these unknowing half-siblings.

Mary's Babies premiered at Jermyn Street Theatre, London, in March 2019.

Auteur

Maud Dromgoole is a writer from London. Her plays include: Mary's Babies (VAULT Festival/King's Head/Fertility Fest @ Bush Theatre/Jermyn Street Theatre, London, 2019); Rosa, Ursula and Richard (Finalist Mercury Weinberger Prize; reading at Old Red Lion); Blue Moon (Bread and Roses/The Courtyard/Arcola - as short play).

Her short plays include Sleeping Beauty (The Bunker); Milk (The Bunker/Hackney Attic); Cake (The Cockpit/Tristan Bates Theatre); The Boy James (Love Bites); A Violet in the Youth of Primy Nature (Theatre Utopia) and Selkie (Southwark Playhouse/Old Red Lion).

Her sitcom Acting Up was shortlisted for BBC Writersroom Comedy Script Room.