About the Play:

Defiance is a full-length dramatic comedy by John Patrick Shanley. Two officers, one black and one white, are on a collision course over race, women and the high cost of doing the right thing. Defiance is a riveting, surprising work is about power, love and responsibility – who has it, who wants it and who deserves it.

Defiance is set in 1971 on a United States Marine Corps base at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Lt. Col. Morgan Littlefield – an ambitious career military man – and his reluctant protégé Capt. Lee King – a young African American officer – clash over issues of race and authority within the Marine Corps, even as the civil rights movement and Vietnam War divide the world outside. In this high-stakes struggle at the top of the ranks, witnessed by the base's inquisitive Chaplain White and Littlefield's irreproachable wife Margaret, John Patrick Shanley has crafted another timely play exploring issues of power and morality within a hallowed institution.

Defiance premiered in 2006 at the Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC) off-Broadway in New York City. Its West Coast premiere was in 2007 at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, California. Defiance is the second work in John Patrick Shanley's trilogy that began with Doubt.

Cast: 1 female, 5 male

What people say:

"Spellbinding. I wouldn't have thought it possible, but John Patrick Shanley has followed up Doubt, the best play of 2004–05, with a play of identical quality." — Wall Street Journal

"As thoughtful and probing as Doubt. An arresting, ambitious tale of race relations and the military mindset, filled with the provocative questions and bristling with dialogue for which John Patrick Shanley, a fierce moral sage, is known." — New York Times

"Thrilling. A lean, powerful fist of a play. With rare compassion, rigor and craft, Shanley again makes a frontal attack on a subject we think we know too well, and proves otherwise." — New York Newsday

"Riveting. Shanley once again poses aptly thorny questions about faith and loyalty." — Time Out New York

"Shanley delivers yet another gripping drama that pushes viewers to the edge of their seats and keeps them thinking long after the show is over." — Star-Ledger

"An absorbing, thoughtful, intelligent work." — Variety

"Complicated, exciting and briskly compelling." — USA Today

"...very rich and satisfying...." — The Village Voice

About the Playwright:

John Patrick Shanley is an American playwright, screenwriter, and director. Shanley has written some two dozen off-Broadway plays since the 1970s, but he is best known for Doubt, which won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award. He has also written extensively for TV and film, and his credits include the teleplay for Live from Baghdad and screenplays for Five Corners and Moonstruck, for which he won an Academy Award for original screenplay.