Rock 'n' Roll (play)

Rock 'n' Roll is a play by British playwright Tom Stoppard that premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 2006.

The play is concerned with the significance of rock and roll in the emergence of the socialist movement in Eastern-Bloc Czechoslovakia between the Prague Spring of 1968 and the Velvet Revolution of 1989.

Taking place in Cambridge, England and in Prague, the play contrasts the attitudes of a young Czech PhD student and rock music fan, who becomes appalled by the repressive regime in his home country, with those of his British Marxist professor, who unrepentantly continues to believe in the Soviet ideal.

The poetry of Sappho is another recurrent motif; its pagan sensualism is implicitly compared with the anarchic erotic force of rock music.

This play is one of several works in Stoppard's oeuvre concerned with artistic dissent against the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia: Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth also addresses this, as do Every Good Boy Deserves Favour and Professional Foul.

[2] Also in attendance was Paul Wilson, the Canadian former lead singer of the Plastic People of the Universe, with whom Stoppard consulted while writing the play.

A Broadway (New York City) run of the play commenced in previews on 19 October 2007 and opened on 4 November 2007 at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre.

[6] Teatre Lliure of Barcelona presented Rock 'n' Roll, in Catalan and directed by Àlex Rigola, as the opening show for the 2008–2009 season between 18 September and 19 October.

[7] Joy Zinoman, Founding Artistic Director of The Studio Theatre in Washington, DC, will direct the play beginning 22 April 2009.