About the Play:

At Home has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female/Male Scenes.

Actors and At Home are two one-act plays by Conrad Bromberg. Actors involves two actors whose pre-rehearsal conversation leads to a deep knowledge of their shared humanity despite their differences. In At Home a couple's effort to learn lines for a play turns unexpectedly to deeper dilemmas. The plays may be presented separately or as an evening of entertainment. Actors is especially recommended for school and contest use.

Funny, sensitive and crafted with consummate skill, Actors looks at the life of both a young actor and an actor past his prime and compares their story at the setting of a chess game. The scene is the bare stage of a theatre, where the two actors await the start of rehearsals. They play chess and exchange theatre stories, but as they do so deeper chords are touched. Just as they represent two generations, and two schools of acting, so do they reflect two distinct ways of thinking – the older man has learned to compromise and to hold back his true opinions; while the younger man must live, and act, as openly as his emotions dictate. Ultimately sparks are struck, and their conversation cuts to the root of human relationships. But, when they part, it is evident that both, in finally revealing their deepest and most honest thoughts, have also gained much from each other – perhaps even more than they have been aware of giving. (1 female, 2 male)

Particularly suitable as a companion piece for Actors, At Home is an antic and revealing short comedy that can be just as effectively presented by itself. A young actor, cued by his wife, is struggling to learn his lines in a new play. Inevitably, their attention wanders, and before long they are deep in a discussion of sex and role-playing – with alarming results. What began casually moves briskly toward ultimatum and confrontation, and both are stunned to realize that their relationship, if it is to continue, will demand a great deal more understanding and concern from each of them than they have heretofore contributed. (1 female, 1 male)

The double-bill of Actors and At Home was warmly received in its Off-Off-Broadway production by New York's noted Ensemble Studio Theatre in 1974. These two short plays were produced to critical acclaim in 1988 at the McCadden Place Theatre in Hollywood, California. At Home has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and Actors is an ideal choice for high school drama contests and one-act festivals.

What people say:

"…written with great economy and humor." — New York Times

"The characters in the two plays are all working in the theater. Yet the backstage dialogue between an old trouper and a young leading man, which makes up the first play, Actors, also resonates beyond the theater. This is a play for anyone who becomes too self-conscious about the task at hand, or anyone who feels too much like an outsider to relax about the task at hand. ...in the second and most probing of the plays, At Home, it's the actor's wife – a non-thespian – who emerges as the most insecure character of the evening. She has been covering this up – acting, in her own way. But while reading lines with her husband one evening, one simple remark leads to the unraveling of her performance and possibly their marriage." — Los Angeles Times

About the Playwright:

Conrad Bromberg is an American playwright and screenwriter. His plays include Actors and At Home. He has also written the screenplay Another Woman's Child and the teleplays Silent Witness and Siege.