About the Play:

Criminal Hearts has become a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues and Female/Female Scenes.

Criminal Hearts is a full-length comedy by Jane Martin. A burglar has been casing an upscale condo for weeks. But once she breaks in the place is empty, except for an agoraphobic wife and her mattress. Her husband just cleaned her out and left her with nothing more than an empty condo and an empty life. When an unlikely friendship forms, these women develop a plan of revenge. Will criminal minds prevail over Criminal Hearts?

Criminal Hearts takes place in a swank Chicago apartment... or what's left of it. Agoraphobic Ata Windust spends her days with nothing but a mattress, pizza boxes, and Dr. Pepper. Her marriage is over and now avoiding the outside world and sharpening pencils are the only activities that fill her time. Things change; however, when a cat-burglar comes through the window looking to rob Ata's high-class digs. She wakes and claims to have a gun. The burglar turns on a light revealing a luxury apartment totally denuded of furniture by her lawyer husband. In revenge for his philandering, she slept with his best friend and he took all of the furniture in his rage. Forming an unlikely friendship based on revenge and half-truths, Ata and the burglar, actually a con-woman, join forces to take the husband for everything. Con-woman Bo and her male partner Robbie have lost their "shimmy", the woman who pretends to the mark to have been victimized, and it is clear that Ata would make an excellent replacement. She eventually agrees and embarks on a life of crime. Fans of the author's many plays will delight in the quirky humour of this cross between Thelma and Louise and The Grifters.

Criminal Hearts premiered in 1992 at The Theatre Company in Detroit, Michigan. 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: 2 female, 2 male

What people say:

"Loads of fun…. Wonderful farcical comedy." — Detroit News

About the Playwright:

Jane Martin, apparently from Kentucky, has been referred to as "America's best known, unknown playwright". The name Jane Martin is widely believed to be a pseudonym. She has been nominated for the Pulitzer prize, and won the American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award twice. But she has never made any public appearances or spoken about any of her works. Nor has she ever given an interview. No biographical details are known about her. No photographs of Ms. Martin have ever been published.