About the Play:

The Country House has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues and Male Monologues.

The Country House is a full-length comedic drama by Donald Margulies. A theatrical family of famous and longing-to-be-famous creative artists have gathered at their summer home during the Williamstown Theatre Festival. When the weekend takes an unexpected turn, everyone is forced to improvise, inciting a series of simmering jealousies, romantic outbursts, and passionate soul-searching.

The Country House is a clever and compelling love letter to theatre, and everyone who enjoys it both on- and off-stage. One year after the death of a loved one, a family of actors gathers in their Berkshire home during the Williamstown summer theater season, wrestling with fame, art, and as always, each other. But when the events of the weekend go off-script, secrets are spilled and bonds are broken – threatening an already fragile foundation of a home brimming with old memories, new love, and discarded dreams. Both witty and compelling, The Country House provides a piercing look at a family of performers coming to terms with the roles they play in each other's lives.

The Country House premiered in 2014 at Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles and a subsequent Broadway premiere at Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC) in New York. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and has been performed in regional, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 3 female, 3 male

What people say:

"A valentine to the artists of the stage." — The New York Times

"Remarkably candid and funny." — Variety

"The Country House is one of the most satisfying new American plays to reach Broadway in the past decade…a truly affecting play." — The Wall Street Journal

"This is a play that sneaks up on you, its satire and surprises well concealed and explosively timed." — CulturalWeekly.com

"A valentine to the theater…There are laughs aplenty." — Entertainment Weekly

"Margulies takes drama and intrigue to new heights… The Country House gets us to think and feel and reconsider the conditions at hand. That’s a feat that great plays like this one can achieve." — The Huffington Post

About the Playwright:

Donald Margulies is an American playwright, screenwriter, and a professor of English and Theater Studies at Yale University. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2000 for his play, Dinner With Friends. Other plays include Pulitzer Prize finalists Sight Unseen and Collected Stories. He has also developed screenplays for HBO, NBC, Paramount, Propaganda, Touchstone, Warner Bros., TriStar and Universal.