About the Play:

All-American is a full-length drama by Julia Brownell. This play tells the story of a female high school quarterback and the pressures she and her family face as they consider her future commitment to the sport. All-American is a gender bending look at a father obsessed with making his daughter an NFL quarterback.

All-American is the story of a modern American family in danger of imploding. Suburban dad and former NFL quarterback Mike Slattery's world revolves around the pigskin, even in retirement. He pressures his daughter, Katie, a talented quarterback herself, to excel on the field and pursue the near-impossible goal of becoming the first female player in the NFL. After the family moves just so she can play with a top-ranked high school team, she soon wants to quit because all of the fun has gone out of the game. Meanwhile, Mike virtually ignores Katie's nonathletic twin brother, Aaron, who is smart and musically inclined but cuts classes, smokes, and feels like an outsider in his own home. Beth, a former cheerleader who spent the last sixteen years of her life as a full time wife and mother, is finding fulfillment in her real-estate job, but Mike is pushing her to have another child for him to train for gridiron glory.

All-American premiered in 2011 at The Duke On 42nd Street off-Broadway in New York City.

Cast: 3 women, 3 men

What people say:

"Filled with well-observed characterizations and comic zingers." — New York Post

"A promising introduction to a young playwright who's in the game." — New York Daily News

"[Brownell] writes pithy, vivid scenes that expose the household tensions with amusing efficiency…." — Variety

"Brownell...presents each member of the Slattery clan in full color, creating a complex and rich portrait of parents and children in crisis. No one is the villain or hero, and Brownell avoids easy answers and tidy resolutions. Most playwrights would use events like the threat of a divorce or a potentially catastrophic sports injury to either unite or irreparably damage the family unit. But after each of these occurs, Brownell leaves the situation with plenty of loose ends, as often happens in real life." — BackStage

About the Playwright:

Julia Brownell is an American playwright and screenwriter. A graduate of the M.F.A. Theatre Program at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, she is known as a writer and co-executive producer on the Emmy-winning NBC series This is Us. She has also written on NBC's Parenthood, Smash, and About a Boy; The Path on Hulu; and two seasons on the critically-acclaimed HBO half-hour series Hung.