2005 Brandon Valley High School Fall Play

Flowers for Algernon

By David Rogers

Charlie Gordon, a 32 year-old mentally challenged bakery worker, is given the opportunity of a lifetime.  A promising experimental operation has greatly increased the intelligence of a laboratory mouse named Algernon, and the creator of the radical new surgery is anxious to proceed with human testing.  As Charlie’s mental capacity increases, his life begins to change.  Charlie must deal with the emotions of his long forgotten past, his rapidly increasing intelligence, and his love for teacher Alice Kinnian.  As Algernon begins to regress, Charlie is compelled to use his new found intelligence to find out what went wrong in order to prevent the same thing from happening to him. 

The stage adaptation of “Flowers for Algernon”, by David Rogers, is based on the short story of the same name originally published in 1959 by Daniel Keyes.  The story was adapted for television as “The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon” in 1961.  Keyes expanded the short story to a novel, which was released in 1966.  In 1968, actor Cliff Robertson, who played the role of Charlie Gordon in the TV version, starred in the motion picture “Charly”, for which he received the 1968 “Best Actor” award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

“Flowers for Algernon” was presented by the Brandon Valley High School Theatre Department on October 21-22, 2005 in the Brandon Valley High School Performing Arts Center.  Produced by special arrangement with The Dramatic Publishing Company of Woodstock, Illinois.

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