About the Play:

The Gingham Dog has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues, Female/Female Scenes and Female/Male Scenes.

The Gingham Dog is a full-length drama by Lanford Wilson. A liberal white Southern man and a black woman from Harlem, a once happily married couple, are suffering through the first days of their separation. Will the couple separate for good or is there hope for reconciliation? The Gingham Dog is a powerful, eloquent and relentlessly honest study of a disintegrating interracial marriage, which marked this author's Broadway debut.

The Gingham Dog is a story of the break-up of a black and white relationship that leaves love dead and lying on the ground. Against the backdrop of Civil Rights-era New York City, Gloria and Vincent, a once-happy couple, are winding down an emotional slugfest. Vincent has decided to move out, and as they divide their possessions amidst the mutual recriminations and accusations, their tolerance level for each other sinks and many of their long-withheld feelings about race and each other come to the surface in ways alternately comedic and painful. Vincent does indeed leave but returns early the next morning in a semi-drunken state. The household possessions that had proven to be so symbolic in defining their relationship are no longer there, for they are no longer important. They bicker again, but this time, with their defenses lowered, the young, innocent and honest couple they had been during the first year of their marriage resurfaces. The couple attempts to reach common ground about the end of the relationship as well as the changing times. Neither gets their trust up far enough to admit their shortcomings, however. They lapse into a cheery charade of friendliness, until Vincent leaves Gloria for good, casting a shadow on any hope of reconciliation.

The Gingham Dog premiered in 1968 at the Washington Theater Club in Washington, DC, and the following year the play opened on Broadway at the John Golden Theatre. Since then the play had a critically acclaimed run in 2006 by The African Continuum Theatre Company at the Atlas Performing Arts Center in Washington, DC. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and has been mounted by regional, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 2 female, 2 male

What people say:

"…(a) play with bite, relevance and dramatic content." — Variety

"Wilson's play is, quite simply, magnificent – in its honesty, its perception and its theatrical integrity." — Washington (D.C.) Examiner

"…a work of clear and substantial values… The Gingham Dog will have a long life." — Washington (D.C.) Post

About the Playwright:

Lanford Wilson (1937-2011) was one of the most distinguished American playwrights of the late 20th century. He was instrumental in drawing attention to Off-Off Broadway, where his first works were staged in the mid-1960s. He was also among the first playwrights to move from that milieu to renown on wider stages, ascending to Off Broadway, and then to Broadway, within a decade of his arrival in New York. His work has also long been a staple of regional theaters throughout the United States. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980, was elected in 2001 to the Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2004 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.