Great Expectations

Gale Childs Daly has been a playwright, director, teacher and actor in the theatre for many years. A graduate of the Goodman School of Drama at the Art Institute of Chicago (now DePaul University), Daly has worked at the Goodman Theatre, the Alley Theatre, the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival, the Great River Shakespeare Festival and the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts, among others. As a playwright, she has adapted The Secret Garden, The Story of Opal and The Lament for Ignacio Sanchez. Some of Daly’s directing credits include The Government Inspector, Julius Caesar and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. As an actor, under the name Gale Fury Childs, she has enjoyed playing such roles as Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, Goneril in King Lear and Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible. Daly is a freelance director, teacher and text coach in the Midwest. She is married to actor Jonathan Gillard Daly and has two children. Currently, she lives in Milwaukee.

Charles Dickens (1812-1870), one of the most popular and prolific writers of the 19th century, was born on February 7, 1812, in Portsea, England, to John and Elizabeth Dickens. His father was a clerk in the Naval Pay Office, and in 1824, he was arrested for debt. While his family was imprisoned in the Marshalsea Prison in London, Dickens, then only twelve, was forced to work at Warren’s Blacking Factory. After his father was released from prison, Dickens attended a day school in London. In 1827, he was taken from school and worked in a law office and later as a freelance reporter at Doctor’s Commons Courts.

In 1833, under the pseudonym Boz, he began writing sketches of London life, which appeared in newspapers and magazines and were published in the collection Sketches by Boz in 1836. That year, Dickens also married Catherine Hogarth, met John Forster, his close friend and biographer, became the editor of Bentley’s Miscellany, and began publishing The Pickwick Papers in monthly installments, a form that he would use for his other works. Over the next six years, Dickens published four novels in serial form, Oliver Twist (1837-1839), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841) and Barnaby Rudge (1841).

In 1842, he went on a lecture tour of the United States and Canada, where he urged the abolition of slavery and international copyright. When he returned to England, he published American Notes (1842), a critical account of his experiences there, and the novel Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-1844), part of which was set in America. He also wrote A Christmas Carol (1844), the first of his popular Christmas books, which include The Chimes (1844) and The Cricket on the Hearth (1845).

After returning from a tour of Italy, Switzerland and France with his family, Dickens established an amateur theatre company. He also founded and edited two periodicals, Household Words, which ran from 1850 to 1859, and All the Year Round, which ran from 1859 until his death. In 1853, Dickens gave the first of many public readings from his work.

During this period, Dickens wrote his most successful novels, Dombey and Son (1846-1848), David Copperfield (1849-1850), Bleak House (1852-1853), Hard Times (1854), Little Dorrit (1855-1857), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860-1861) and Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865). After several tours of the British Isles and America to give public readings, Dickens suffered a mild stroke. He died in London on June 9, 1870, leaving his final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, unfinished.

Jerry Lee is Sierra Rep’s Artistic Director. He’s appeared in the SRT productions of Misery, Sunday in the Park with George, Elf The Musical, Shrek The Musical, Camelot, Cabaret, Route 66, Intimate Apparel, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Man of La Mancha, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s State Fair, and The Drowsy Chaperone. As an actor: I Love You…Change, Forbidden Broadway (California Musical Theatre); Life Could Be a Dream, A Christmas Carol (CenterREP); A Little Princess, The Fantasticks (Sacramento Theatre Company); West Side Story (Mountain Play); Orlando, An Iliad, A Tale of Two Cities (SacImpulse Theatre). As a soloist: Rodgers and Hammerstein Celebration (Sacramento Choral Society); Billy Bigelow in Carousel in Concert (Sacramento Philharmonic). As a director: HAIR, Little Shop of Horrors, Mean Girls JR., Sh-Boom! A Christmas Miracle (World Premiere), Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, Twelfth Night, Jersey Boys, Clue, Disney’s Winnie the Pooh KIDS, Elvis The Musical (West Coast Premiere), Dogfight, Disney’s The Little Mermaid, Steel Magnolias, Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka KIDS, I Love You…Change, The Wizard of Oz, Holiday Jukebox, Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, The Robber Bridegroom (SRT); I Love You…Change (STC). Lee began his association with Sierra Rep in 2010 when he stepped in as a replacement in Guys and Dolls.

In 2019, Lee created SRT in Schools, a touring program that brings live professional theatre to Tuolumne County schools at no cost to the schools, students, or their families. In 2023, the program branched out to include Stanislaus and Calaveras counties.