[photo credit: Boston Court Pasadena]
Boston Court Pasadena screens the National Theatre Live broadcast of Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession on Sunday, April 19, at 2 p.m. — a filmed production directed by Dominic Cooke in which five-time Olivier Award winner Imelda Staunton and her real-life daughter Bessie Carter perform as mother and daughter for the first time, in a play that is literally about a mother and daughter at odds over the price of moral compromise.
The casting is not accidental. Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession turns on the confrontation between Mrs. Warren, who has built a fortune managing a chain of European brothels, and her daughter Vivie, who has been educated on that fortune without knowing its source. The discovery does not destroy Vivie. It clarifies her. What Shaw was doing in 1893 — arguing that prostitution is not a product of moral failure but of an economic system that denied women any other path to financial survival — was considered so dangerous that the Lord Chamberlain refused to license the play for public British stages. When it was finally staged in New York in 1905, the cast was arrested mid-production. The charges were dropped; the play survived.
Staunton, known to television audiences as Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown, has won five Laurence Olivier Awards. Carter, known for Bridgerton, had never appeared on stage with her mother before this production. According to the National Theatre’s production description, the pairing gives the play’s central confrontation an emotional texture that goes beyond ordinary casting.
The production was filmed live at London’s Garrick Theatre in 2025 and began international cinema screenings in October of that year. Cooke, who previously directed Staunton in Follies at the National Theatre and Hello, Dolly! at the London Palladium, reunites with her here for a Shaw work that the production describes as exploring “the clash between morality and independence, traditions and progress,” according to the National Theatre.
Boston Court Pasadena has presented National Theatre Live screenings as a regular part of its programming for multiple seasons, offering Pasadena audiences access to West End and National Theatre productions in its intimate 99-seat venue. The nonprofit arts center, founded in 2003 and supported in part by the City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division, has screened NT Live productions including Fleabag, Hamlet, All My Sons, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Dr. Strangelove.
NT Live: Mrs. Warren’s Profession screens at Boston Court Pasadena, 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena, on Sunday, April 19, at 2 p.m. A second screening is scheduled for May 24. Tickets are $27. For tickets or information, visit ci.ovationtix.com/112/production/1254072 or call (626) 683-6801.
Shaw said he wrote Mrs. Warren’s Profession to show that prostitution was caused “not by female depravity and male licentiousness, but simply by underpaying, undervaluing and overworking women,” according to his published writings. The argument is 133 years old. The play is still arguing.
NT LIVE: MRS. WARREN’S PROFESSION | Date & Time: Sunday, April 19, 2026, 2:00 PM | Venue: Boston Court Pasadena, 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena, CA 91106 | Phone Number: (626) 683-6801 | Website: https://ci.ovationtix.com/112/production/1254072 | Cost: $27.00
