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Sarah Ruhl

SARAH RUHL

  (1974 - )
Nationality:    USA
email:    n/a     Website:    Click here

Literary Agent:    United Talent Agency  represented by Mark Subias

Sarah Ruhl's plays include IN the NEXT ROOM OR the VIBRATOR PLAY (Tony Award nominee, 2010, finalist for Pulitzer Prize, 2010, Glickman Prize, 2009), the CLEAN HOUSE (Susan Smith Blackburn award, 2004, finalist for Pulitzer Prize, 2005), DEAD MAN's CELL PHONE (Helen Hayes award for best new play), DEMETER IN the CITY (nominated for 9 NAACP awards), EURYDICE, MELANCHOLY PLAY, ORLANDO, a new version of Chekhov's THREE SISTERS, and PASSION PLAY (Kennedy Center Fourth Forum Freedom Award). Her plays have premiered at the Lyceum Theater on Broadway, produced by Lincoln Center; Theater off-Broadway at Lincoln Center Theater, Playwrights' Horizons, and Second Stage; and regionally at Berkeley Repertory Theater, Yale Repertory Theater, the Goodman Theater, Cornerstone Theater, Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth, Cincinnati Playhouse, and the Piven Theater Workshop in Chicago, as well being produced at many other Theaters across the country. Her plays have also been performed in England, Poland, Germany, Israel, New Zealand, and Australia, and have been translated into Spanish, Polish, Russian, Korean and Arabic. Sarah received her M.F.A. from Brown University where she studied with Paula Vogel, and is originally from Chicago. In 2003, she was the recipient of a Helen Merrill award and a Whiting Writers' award, a PEN/Laura Pels award, and in 2006 was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. Her work is published by TCG and Samuel French, and she is a member of New Dramatists and 13P. She lives in New York City with her family.

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below is a list of Sarah Ruhl's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

         Clean House, The         Dead Man's Cell Phone         Dear Elizabeth         Demeter In the City         Eurydice         For Peter Pan on her 70th birthday         In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play         Late: A Cowboy Song         Melancholy Play         Oldest Boy, The         Orlando         Passion Play, a cycle         Questions for Snowless Children         Stage Kiss         Three Sisters, The         Two Conversations Overheard on Airplanes         Virtual Meditation 1
Clean House, The

Clean House, The
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.

Notes:

1st Produced:
Arts Nova, NYC     2003

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in Clean House and Other Plays, Theatre Communications Group, USA, 2006   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Comedy

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Dead Man's Cell Phone

Dead Man's Cell Phone
Gordon is dead, but his cell phone lives on. When Jean, an empathetic museum worker, answers his ringing phone beside her in a cafe, she is soon playing unwitting comforter and confessor to the man's grieving friends and family. Before she knows it, Jean's ensnarled in the underbelly of the dead man's bizarre life.
- press release

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Dramatic comedy

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Dear Elizabeth

Dear Elizabeth
Told through the extensive and imaginative correspondence between two of the 20th century's most important and celebrated American poets  Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell  Dear Elizabeth is a different kind of love story, of artists and friends. Bishop and Lowell's thirty-five-year friendship served to buoy each other up in life and art, each being profoundly impacted by the other. Celebrated playwright Sarah Ruhl weaves a lyrical, moving portrait of a friendship between two writers that transcends oceans, continents, and time.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Yale Repertory Theater, 1120 Chapel Street, New Haven     01 Nov 2012

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Faber & Faber (September 2, 2014)   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
play in letters 105 min

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Demeter In the City

Synopsis:
Setting: An urban landscape. Somewhere between an abandoned community garden and an abandoned playground. The sense of an overworld and an underworld. Some plant life in between the cracks of the junk. Demeter has some planters on her stoop that have long dried up.

Notes:
by Sarah Ruhl and writing by the women at Shields, students at King Drew high school, the Cornerstone Theater ensemble, Los Angeles social workers, students from Mecha at Cal State Northridge, the Bruin Young Republicans from UCLA and other twenty year olds in Los Angeles. . .

1st Produced:

Organisations:
commission for Cornerstone Theater's twentieth anniversary

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  5            Female:  6            Other:  chorus

Further Reference:
-

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Eurydice

Eurydice
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.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in Divine Fire by Back Stage Books, 2005.
also published by Samuel French, Inc - New York, 2008 >>>
Methuen Drama, London   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
90 min One Act

Parts:
Male:  5            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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For Peter Pan on her 70th birthday

Synopsis:
For Peter Pan on her 70th birthdaya fanciful and moving look at growing up versus growing old within a family. In the wake of their fathers death, five siblings are driven to reconnect with childhood dreams and confront the inevitability of the passage of time.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
40th Humana Festival of New American Plays     10 Mar 2016

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play

In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play
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.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Berkeley Rep Roda Theatre, Berkley, Ca     01 Feb 2009

Organisations:
Berkeley Repertory Theatre

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Comedy

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Late: A Cowboy Song

Late: A Cowboy Song
Crick and Mary have been together since second grade. Mary has become friends with Red who loves riding and horses. Controlling Crick does not like the friendship

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in Clean House and Other Plays, Theatre Communications Group, USA, 2006   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Melancholy Play

Melancholy Play
Tilly is a melancholic - yet everyone she meets falls in love with her. then one day she suddenly becomes happy and this wreaks havoc on the lives of all she knows. Meanwhile her hairdresser has turned into an almond

Notes:
Written by Todd Almond and Sarah Ruhl

1st Produced:
Brown University     2001

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in Clean House and Other Plays, Theatre Communications Group, USA, 2006   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
chamber musical

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Oldest Boy, The

Oldest Boy, The
In this moving and delightful exploration of motherhood, love and letting go, Tony Award nominee Celia Keenan-Bolger (The Glass Menagerie) is an American mother whose young son is believed to be the reincarnation of a high Buddhist Lama. When Tibetan monks arrive unexpectedly, asking to take her child away for a life of spiritual training in India, she and her Tibetan husband must make a life-altering choice that will test their faith. . .and their hearts.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Orlando

Orlando
This is a new play by Sarah Ruhl based on the work of Virginia Woolf. Meet Virginia Woolf's Orlando, your typical Elizabethan Man: a favorite of the Queen, madly in love with a Russian Princess, fleeing an Archduchess, and waking up one fine day in Constantinople to find he has become, of all things, a woman. She survives the 19th and 20th centuries grappling with what it means to live fully in the present, in our own skin, in our own gender, and in our own time.
- nytheatre.com

Notes:
adapted from novel by Virginia Woolf

1st Produced:
Classic Stage
136 East 13th Street, New York, NY 10003     23 Sep 2010

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Contained in: "Chekhov's Three Sisters Woolf's Orlando Two Renderings For The Stage" published by Theatre Communications Group 2013   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Passion Play, a cycle

Passion Play, a cycle
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.

Notes:
early version workshopped At Tristan bates, London July 2002

1st Produced:
Arena Stage, Washington Dc     02 Sep 2005

Organisations:
Epic Theatre Ensemble

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Dramatic comedy

Parts:
Male:  8            Female:  3            Other:  with doubling

Further Reference:
-

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Questions for Snowless Children

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Stage Kiss

Stage Kiss
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. Sarah Ruhl's singular voice returns to Playwrights Horizons with Stage Kiss, a charming tale about what happens when lovers share a stage kissor when actors share a real one.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Goodman Theatre, Chicago     34/2011

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Theatre Communications Group (February 24, 2015)
Samuel French, Inc - New York (2015) >>>    

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
comedy 120 min

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Three Sisters, The

Three Sisters, The
Transplanted from their beloved Moscow to a provincial Russian town, three sistersschool teacher Olga, unhappily married Masha, idealistic Irinayearn for the city of their childhood, where they imagine their lives will be transformed and fulfilled. Three Sisters is the portrait of a family grappling with the bittersweet distance between reality and dreams.

Notes:
Original Playwright - Anton Chekhov. Based on a literal translation by: Elise Thoron with Natasha Paramonova and Kristin Johnsen-Neshati

1st Produced:
Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park in Cincinnati, Ohio     24 Oct 2009

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Contained in: Chehov's Three Sisters and Wool's Orlando Two Renderings For The Stage" published by Theatre Communications Group 2013
Samuel French, Inc - New York (2015) >>>    

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Translation

Parts:
Male:  9            Female:  5            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Two Conversations Overheard on Airplanes

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
ten min

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Virtual Meditation 1

Synopsis:
Can machines sense how we feel? Playwright Sarah Ruhl, in collaboration with the students and faculty at Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center, has harnessed the subtle energy of touch in this stunning virtual reality romance.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Humana Festival 2002: the Complete Plays, ed Tanya Palmer & Amy Wegener, Smith & Kraus, 2002   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Technology Project

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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