The Cherry Orchard Cherry Orchard" was Chekhov's tribute to himself. Many of the characters in the play hearken back to his earlier works and are based on people he knew in his own life. It should also be noted that his boyhood house was bought and torn down by a wealthy man that his mother had considered a friend. The breaking guitar string in acts 2 and 4 hark back to his earliest works. Finally the classic "loaded gun" that appears in many of Chekhov's plays appears here, but this is his only play in which a gun is shown but not fired.
The Cherry Orchard orchard was felled onstage. A production in 1925 at the Oxford Playhouse by J. B. Fagan and a production in 1934 at the Sadler's Wells Theatre in London directed by Tyrone Guthrie and translated by Hubert Butler were among the first English-language productions of the play. A television version featuring Helen Hayes as Ranevskaya, and Susan Strasberg as Anya, directed by Daniel Petrie, was broadcast as part of the "Play of the Week" television series in 1959. A Royal Shakespeare Company/BBC Television version from 1962 was directed by Michael Elliott from Michel Saint-Denis stage production. This features Peggy Ashcroft as