Sarah Ruhl

In this chamber musical version of Sarah Ruhl'sMelancholy Play Tilly's melancholy is of an exquisite quality. She turns her melancholy into a sexy thing and every stranger she meets falls in love with her. One day inexplicably Tilly becomes happy and wreaks havoc on the lives of her paramours. Frances Tilly's hairdresser becomes so melancholy that she turns into an almond. It is up to Tilly to get her back.

In this moving exploration of parenthood an American mother and a Tibetan father have a three-year-old son believed to be the reincarnation of a Buddhist lama. When a Tibetan lama and a monk come to their home unexpectedly asking to take their child away for a life of spiritual training in India the parents must make a life-altering choice that will test their strength their marriage and their hearts. The Oldest Boy is a richly emotional journey filled with music dance p

In this moving exploration of parenthood, an American mother and a Tibetan father have a three-year-old son believed to be the reincarnation of a Buddhist lama. When a Tibetan lama and a monk come to their home unexpectedly, asking to take their child away for a life of spiritual training in India, the parents must make a life-altering choice that will test their strength, their marriage, and their hearts. The Oldest Boy is a richly emotional journey filled with music, dance, puppetry, ritual, and laughter--Sarah Ruhl at her imaginative best. A meditation on attachment and unconditional love, the play asks us to believe in a world in which sometimes the youngest children are also the oldest and wisest teachers.

Sarah Ruhl is a mother of three and one of America's best-known playwrights. She has written a stunningly original book of essays whose concerns range from the most minimal and personal subjects to the most encompassing matters of art and culture. The titles themselves speak to the volume's uniqueness: "On lice," "On sleeping in the theatre," "On motherhood and stools (the furniture kind)," "Greek masks and Bell's Palsy." 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write is a book in which chimpanzees, Chekhov, and child care are equally at home. A vibrant, provocative examination of the possibilities of the theatre, it is also a map to a very particular artistic sensibility, and an unexpected guide for anyone who has chosen an artist's life.

Art imitates Life. Life imitates Art. When two actors with a history are thrown together as romantic leads in a forgotten 1930s melodrama, they quickly lose touch with reality as the story onstage follows them offstage. Stage Kiss captures Sarah Ruhl's singular voice. It is a charming tale about what happens when lovers share a stage kiss-or when actors share a real one." CRITIC'S PICK. Suffused with warmth and humor. Sarah Ruhl frothily whips together romantic comedy and backstage farc

Tilly's melancholy is of an exquisite quality. She turns her melancholy into a sexy thing and every stranger she meets falls in love with her. One day inexplicably Tilly becomes happy and wreaks havoc on the lives of her paramours. Frances Tilly's hairdresser becomes so melancholy that she turns into an almond. It is up to Tilly to get her back.

"A gift and a rarity: a superb new romantic comedy that's moving, smart and flat-out hilarious... You will have difficulty breathing. Stage Kiss is that funny." -- Jesse Green, New York "In Stage Kiss passion and fidelity engage in a kind of elegant pas de deux... At once a knowing send-up of the hazy half-truths of stage naturalism and a meditation on the nature of desire and sexual fantasy, the play manages to be both wholly original and instantly recognizable." -- John Lahr, New Yorker "A knockabout farce that channels Noel Coward and Michael Frayn." -- Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune "Wickedly clever... Ruhl's unique, breezily elegant dialogue is fully present." -- Steven Oxman, Variety "A lively blend of romantic comedy and backstage farce... Stage Kiss reminds us of how the artifice of theater can stir real emotions not just for those who create it, but for those who attend it, too." -- Charles Isherwood, New York Times When estranged lovers are thrown together as romantic leads in a long-forgotten 1930s melodrama, the line between offstage and onstage begins to blur. Here, Sarah Ruhl, one of America's most widely produced playwrights, brings her unique mix of lyricism, sparkling humor and fierce intelligence to the world of romantic comedy. The play asks us to consider what is real, both in love and in art. Sarah Ruhl's plays include the Pulitzer Prize finalists In the Next Room or the vibrator play (Tony Award nominee, Best Play) and The Clean House (Susan Smith Blackburn Award), as well as Passion Play, a cycle; Dead Man's Cell Phone; Dear Elizabeth; Eurydice; Melancholy Play and Late: a cowboy song. She is the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award, a PEN/Laura Pels Award and a MacArthur Fellowship.

From playwright Sarah Ruhl, Dear Elizabeth is a moving, innovative play based on one of the greatest correspondences in literary history--the letters of Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop. From 1947 to 1977, Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop exchanged more than four hundred letters. Describing the writing of their poems, their travel and daily illnesses, the pyrotechnics of their romantic relationships, and the profound affection they had for each other, these missives are the most intimate record available of both poets and one of the greatest correspondences in American literature. The playwright Sarah Ruhl fell in love with these letters and set herself an unusual challenge: to turn this thirty-year exchange into a stage play, and to bring to life the friendship of two writers who were rarely even in the same country. As innovative as it is moving, Dear Elizabeth gives voice to a conversation that lived mostly in writing, illuminating some of the finest poems of the twentieth century and the minds that produced them.

Dramatic Comedy Characters: 8 male, 3 female (with doubling) Hailed by the New Yorker's John Lahr as "extraordinary", "bold", and "inventive", Sarah Ruhl's Passion Play takes us behind the scenes of three communities attempting to stage the death and resurrection of Christ. From Queen Elizabeth's England to Hitler's Germany to Reagan's America, Ruhl's exploration of devotion takes us on a humorous yet unsettling journey filled with lust, whimsy, and a lot of fish. This intimate epic occurs at the timely intersection of politics and religion. Ruhl dramatizes a community of players rehearsing their annual staging of the Easter Passion in three different eras: 1575 northern England, just before Queen Elizabeth outlaws the ritual; 1934 Oberammergua, Bavaria, as Hitler is rising to power; and Spearfish, South Dakota, from the time of Vietnam through Reagan's presidency. In each period, the players grapple in different ways with the transformative nature of art, and politics are never far in the background, as Queen Elizabeth, Hitler, and Reagan each appear, played by a single commanding actor. Named one of the "Ten Best Plays of 2008" by The New Yorker "Her [Ruhl's] unmistakable voice - poetic and quirky, underpinned with serious feeling and even more serious intelligence - trumpets forth in brash, impressive form in this ambitious and frisky if sometimes unruly play." -New York Times. "Ruhl's voice seems to retreat beyond the sphere of the play, performing that special vanishment that good writers-and good gods-know best how to do... Critic's Pick!" -Time Out NY "Let's just get the superlatives out of the way. Sarah Ruhl's Passion Play is the most exciting, stimulating, and thrilling piece of theater to hit New York since Angels in America." -Backstage

"A fascinating, funny and evocative play. . . . Ruhl develops the story with the enticing blend of irreverent humor and skewed realism. . . . It's beautiful." -San Francisco Chronicle" This] breathtakingly inventive addition to Ruhl's singular body of work . . . has the potential to be a modern masterpiece."-Los Angeles TimesSarah Ruhl made her Broadway debut this fall with her latest effervescent comedy: a play about sex, intimacy, and equality, set in the 1880s, when enthusiasm for the electric light bulb gave rise to a handy new instrument to treat female hysteria. The story revolves around the medical office and home of Dr. Givings, who regularly induces "paroxysm" in his once high-strung patient Sabrina, allowing her to happily return to playing piano. Soon, Sabrina falls in love with the doctor's assistant Annie, and also befriends his wife Catherine, who is dealing with her own neurotic misgivings about not being able to breast-feed her baby. With this new work, Ruhl once again uses playful symbolism and lyrical language as she makes seemingly effortless thematic leaps--crafting a play with tremendous critical and audience appeal, in her singular theatrical voice. Sarah Ruhl's plays include Dead Man's Cell Phone, The Clean House (a Pulitzer Prize finalist), Passion Play, and Eurydice, all of which have been widely produced throughout the United States and internationally. She is a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship.

Named one of the "Ten Best Plays of 2008" by "The New Yorker""Sarah Ruhl's bold, inventive, and ironic triptych is] a meditation on devotion and its appropriation by the state. . . . Ruhl is an original; a storyteller with a fine mind evolving her own theatrical idiom."--John Lahr, "The New Yorker""It's a different kind of morality play . . . an often wondrous work . . . with Ruhl's] own special lyrical blend of poetry, humor and grace."--Frank Rizzo, "Variety""Passion Play" is Sarah Ruhl's "biggest, most ambitious effort yet" ("The New York Times"), a three-and-a-half hour intimate epic, plunging the depths of the timely intersection of politics and religion. Ruhl dramatizes a community of players rehearsing their annual staging of the Easter Passion in three different eras: 1575 northern England, just before Queen Elizabeth outlaws the ritual; 1934 Oberammergua, Bavaria, as Hitler is rising to power; and Spearfish, South Dakota, from the time of Vietnam through Reagan's presidency. In each period, the players grapple in different ways with the transformative nature of art, and politics are never far in the background, as Queen Elizabeth, Hitler, and Reagan each appear, played by a single commanding actor. Sarah Ruhl's plays include "Dead Man's Cell Phone," "Eurydice," and "The Clean House," which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Her work has been widely produced both throughout the country and internationally, and she is the recipient of the MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship.

Comedy / Casting: 1m, 4f / Scenery: Int. with inserts This extraordinary new play by an exciting new voice in the American drama was runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize. After its acclaimed run at Yale Repertory Theatre it was done to equal acclaim at several major theatres coast to coast before winding up off Broadway at Lincoln Center, where it had an extended run. The play takes place in what the author describes as "metaphysical Connecticut", mostly in the home of a married couple who are both doctors. They have hired a housekeeper named Matilde, an aspiring comedian from Brazil who's more interested in coming up with the perfect joke than in house-cleaning. Lane, the lady of the house, has an eccentric sister named Virginia who's just nuts about house-cleaning. She and Matilde become fast friends, and Virginia takes over the cleaning while Matilde works on her jokes. Trouble comes when Lane's husband Charles reveals that he has found his soul mate, or "bashert" in a cancer patient named Anna, on whom he has operated. The actors who play Charles and Anna also play Matilde's parents in a series of dream-like memories, as we learn the story about how they literally killed each other with laughter, giving new meaning to the phrase, "I almost died laughing". This theatrical and wildly funny play is a whimsical and poignant look at class, comedy and the true nature of love. "Fresh, funny ...a memorable play, imbued with a melancholy but somehow comforting philosophy: that the messes and disappointments of life are as much a part of its beauty as romantic love and chocolate ice cream, and a perfect punch line can be as sublime as the most wrenchingly lovely aria." - NY Times. "A rich work about big themes from a young playwright with an original and audacious voice." - Variety.

Dramatic Comedy / 2m, 4f / Unit Set An incessantly ringing cell phone in a quiet cafe. A stranger at the next table who has had enough. And a dead man-with a lot of loose ends. So begins Dead Man's Cell Phone, a wildly imaginative new comedy by MacArthur "Genius" Grant recipient and Pulitzer Prize finalist, Sarah Ruhl, author of The Clean House and Eurydice. A work about how we memorialize the dead-and how that remembering changes us-it is the odyssey of a woman forced to confront her own assumptions about morality, redemption, and the need to connect in a technologically obsessed world. "Satire is her oxygen... In her new oddball comedy, Dead Man's Cell Phone, Sarah Ruhl is forever vital in her lyrical and biting takes on how we behave." - The Washington Post "Ruhl's zany probe of the razor-thin line between life and death delivers a fresh and humorous look at the times we live in." - Variety "[Ruhl] tackles big ideas with a voice that entertains" - NPR "...beguiling new comedy... Ms. Ruhl's work blends the mundane and the metaphysical, the blunt and the obscure, the patently bizarre and the bizarrely moving." - New York Times

In the Next Room or the vibrator play is a comedy about marriage, intimacy, and electricity. Set in the 1880s at the dawn of the age of electricity and based on the bizarre historical fact that doctors used vibrators to treat 'hysterical' women (and some men), the play centers on a doctor and his wife and how his new therapy affects their entire household. In a seemingly perfect, well-to-do Victorian home, proper gentleman and scientist Dr. Givings has innocently invented an extraordinary new device for treating "hysteria" in women (and occasionally men): the vibrator. Adjacent to the doctor's laboratory, his young and energetic wife tries to tend to their newborn daughter-and wonders exactly what is going on in the next room. When a new "hysterical" patient and her husband bring a wet nurse and their own complicated relationship into the doctor's home, Dr. and Mrs. Givings must examine the nature of their own marriage, and what it truly means to love someone. This laugh out loud, provocative and touching play premiered at Berkely Rep and subsequently marked Sarah Ruhl's Broadway debut opening at the Lyceum Theatre on November 19th, 2009. Winner! 2010 Will Glickman Award for Best New Play to Premiere in the Bay Area! "Insightful, fresh and funny, the play is as rich in thought as it is in feeling...one of the most gifted and adventurous American playwrights to emerge in recent years... In the Next Room is a true novelty: a sex comedy designed not for sniggering teenage boys - or grown men who wish they were still sniggering teenage boys - but for adults with open hearts and minds." -New York Times "A play that's smart, delicate and very, very funny!" -New York Post "If Henrik Ibsen and Oscar Wilde had decided to collaborate on a post-modern drawing-room comedy, the hotsy-totsy twosome surely would have turned out something very much like Sarah Ruhl's genuinely hysterical new work" -Theatremania "Sarah Ruhl, whose previous work I execrated, has written a smart, charming, iridescently funny-serious jewel... As Ruhl traces it with wit and insight, and without the slightest prurience, the birth of this new era gives rise to colorful events, astute psychological revelations and endearingly apt dialogue." -Bloomberg "The playwright mines her subject for suitably bawdy humor without resorting to vulgarity. But what really gives the work its distinction is its sensitive exploration of the physical and emotional repression suffered by the women of the era, which has yet to disappear entirely... The play beautifully balances its humor and pathos." -Hollywood Reporter

An inventive take on the classic myth, Eurydice is by the highly-acclaimed US playwright Sarah Ruhl and includes magical, dreamlike surrealism, lyrical beauty and heart-rending pathos. Eurydice is in love with Orpheus. Her dead father has advice for her wedding but his letters can't get through to the land of the living. At last one does. With her father's words in her hand, she crashes down a flight of stairs and wakes in the underworld, her memory wiped. How will she ever get home? With a style that is light and precise, but also wildly imaginative, this play sees Alice in Wonderland meet Greek myth. Eurydice is a playful and highly original take on a timeless tale of loss, grief and redemption. When she received her MacArthur Foundation 'genius' grant, she was given this verdict: "Sarah Ruhl, 32, playwright, New York City. Playwright creating vivid and adventurous theatrical works that poignantly juxtapose the mundane aspects of daily life with mythic themes of love and war."

Dramatic Comedy / 5m, 2f / Unit Set In Eurydice, Sarah Ruhl reimagines the classic myth of Orpheus through the eyes of its heroine. Dying too young on her wedding day, Eurydice must journey to the underworld, where she reunites with her father and struggles to remember her lost love. With contemporary characters, ingenious plot twists, and breathtaking visual effects, the play is a fresh look at a timeless love story. "RHAPSODICALLY BEAUTIFUL. A weird and wonderful new play - an inexpressibly moving theatrical fable about love, loss and the pleasures and pains of memory." - The New York Times "EXHILARATING!! A luminous retelling of the Orpheus myth, lush and limpid as a dream where both author and audience swim in the magical, sometimes menacing, and always thrilling flow of the unconscious." - The New Yorker "Exquisitely staged by Les Waters and an inventive design team... Ruhl's wild flights of imagination, some deeply affecting passages and beautiful imagery provide transporting pleasures. They conspire to create original, at times breathtaking, stage pictures." - Variety

"Passionate. Show-stopping. Daringly over-the-top and impressively consistent in its delirious excess. The Clean House shines."--New Haven Advocate "The Clean House is not, by any means, a traditional boy-meets-girl story. In fact disease, death, and dirt are among the subjects it addresses. This comedy is romantic, deeply so, but in the more arcane sense of the word: visionary, tinged with fantasy, extravagant in feeling, maybe a little nuts."--The New York Times "Touching, inventive, invigoratingly compact, and luminously liquid, Eurydice reframes the ancient myth of ill-fated love to focus not on the bereaved musician but on his dead bride--and on her struggle with love beyond the grave."--San Francisco Chronicle This volume is the first publication of Sarah Ruhl, "a playwright with a unique comic voice, perspective, and sense of theater" (Variety), who is fast leaving her mark on the American stage. In the award-winning The Clean House--a play of uncommon romance and uncommon comedy--a maid who hates cleaning dreams about creating the perfect joke, while a doctor who treats cancer leaves his heart inside one of his patients. This volume also includes Eurydice, Ruhl's reinvention of the tragic Greek tale of love and loss, Late: A Cowboy Song, and Melancholy Play. Sarah Ruhl received the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2004 for her play The Clean House, which has been produced at Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Wilma Theatre in Philadelphia, South Coast Repertory Theatre in Costa Mesa, and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, DC. Her play Eurydice has been produced at Madison Repertory Theatre and Berkeley Repertory Theatre.