About the Play:

Fabulation or, The Re-Education of Undine has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues, Male Monologues, Female/Female Scenes, and Female/Male Scenes.

Fabulation or, The Re-Education of Undine is a full-length seriocomedy by Lynn Nottage. Knocked-up and seriously broke, a successful publicist is plunged into a topsy-turvy world of welfare mothers and drug addicts, and forced to confront the family she left behind. Fabulation is a darkly comic rags-to-riches-to-rags tale of falling down and reaching up to find the goodness within.

Fabulation or, The Re-Education of Undine is a social satire about an ambitious and haughty African-American woman, Undine Barnes Calles, whose husband suddenly disappears after embezzling all of her money. Pregnant and on the brink of social and financial ruin, Undine stumbles down the social ladder and retreats to her childhood home in Brooklyn's Walt Whitman projects, where she must face the challenges of the life she left behind. Undine discovers that she must cope with a crude new reality and faces the challenge of transforming her setbacks into small victories in a battle to reaffirm her right to be. Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Lynn Nottage's comical look at downward mobility, Fabulation is a comeuppance tale with a comic twist.

Fabulation or, The Re-Education of Undine premiered in 2004 at Playwrights Horizons Off-Broadway in New York City. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and has been mounted by colleges and community theatres.

Cast: 5 female, 4 male (doubling)

What people say:

"A self-made woman bumps roughly down the social ladder in this lively, loose-limbed satiric fable…clever and consistently entertaining, stocked with funny set pieces…." — Variety

"…a sprawling, picaresque play…robustly entertaining…punchy social insights and the firecracker snap of unexpected humor." — New York Times

About the Playwright:

Lynn Nottage is an African-American playwright and screenwriter whose work often deals with the lives of African Americans and women. She is a graduate of Brown University and the Yale School of Drama, and is also an Associate Professor in the Theatre Department at Columbia School of the Arts. Her plays have been produced widely in the United States and throughout the world. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Ruined and for Sweat, making her the first woman to win the prestigious award twice.