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Getting Out

Getting Out
Your Price: $18.95 CDN
Biz Staff Pick!
Author: Marsha Norman
Publisher: Dramatists Play Service (cover may change)
Format: Softcover
# of Pages: 73
Pub. Date: 1979
ISBN-10: 0822204398
ISBN-13: 9780822204398
Cast Size: 5 female, 7 male

About the Play:

Getting Out has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues, Male Monologues, and Female/Female Scenes, and Female/Male Scenes.

Getting Out is a full-length drama by Marsha Norman. A major off-Broadway success, Getting Out is an eloquent, moving and exceptionally well-written first play that probes into the past and present of a young woman attempting to find her way in life after release from prison. But her efforts to maintain serenity and build a new life are threatened by memories and characters who assume she is who and what she used to be.

Getting Out tells the story of a young woman named "Arlene" and her journey through horrific sexual abuse by her father and her subsequent free fall through the prison system when she takes the life of another. Just released from an 8 year prison term for robbery, kidnapping, and murder she returns to a run-down apartment in Louisville, intent on starting her life over. Rebellious and disruptive as a young girl, she has found strength in religion and wants to put her youth (as "Arlie") behind her. But her struggle to find her way in the present (as "Arlene") is counterpointed by flashbacks of her past (as "Arlie"), her two personalities being represented by two performers, who sometimes appear on stage simultaneously. We meet the guards and prison officials with whom "Arlie" waged a running battle; and the unfeeling, selfish mother, the lecherous former prison guard, the pimp ex-boyfriend, and the touchingly friendly neighbour who has been in prison herself with whom "Arlene" is confronted in the present. Ultimately the play, like life, offers no simple answers – but it conveys, with heartrending honesty and compassion, the struggle of someone fighting for her life against incredible odds.

Getting Out premiered in 1977 at the famed Actors Theatre of Louisville as part of the annual Festival of New American Plays, an influential showplace for playwrights. It opened off Broadway in 1979 at the Theatre de Lys, winning the Outer Critics Circle John Gassner Medallion and the American Theater Critics Association Citation. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and has been performed in regional and college theatre productions.

Cast: 5 female, 7 male

What people say:

"Getting Out is written with such a brisk, fresh, penetrating touch that sordid, brooding things take on the glow of honesty, humanity, very nearly poetry... It is such a good play that even I gave away every plot twist and quoted large chunks of dialogue, you could still see it and be amazed...I merely hope that you will take my word for its remarkable insights, truthfulness and untearful compassion." — New York Magazine

"…a blaze of theatrical energy that lights up the Off-Broadway scene as nothing else has done this season." — New York Times

"The writing is thrilling in its unadorned honesty, and the characters seethe with genuine life…one of the best plays of the year." — New York Post

"This sensitive and beautifully written play totally commands attention, giving us a heroine we really care about…Getting Out speaks to the hearts as well as the mind. It moved me to joyous tears." — Show Business

About the Playwright:

Marsha Norman is an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. She was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, Blackburn Prize, Hull-Warriner, and Drama Desk Awards for her play 'night, Mother and a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award for her book for the Broadway musical The Secret Garden. Other awards and accolades throughout her career have been numerous and include, among many others, a Grammy, a Peabody, and the William Inge Distinguished Lifetime Achievement in Theatre Award. She has received 18 honorary degrees from American Colleges and Universities, and is the Co-Chair of the Playwriting Department of Juilliard.

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