About the Play:

Gloria has become a favourite of acting teachers for Male Monologues, Female/Male Scenes, and Male/Male Scenes.

Gloria is a full-length drama by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Style. Status. Success. A group of twenty-something editorial assistants are pursuing it all at one of New York's most esteemed cultural magazines. When a seemingly normal day at the office turns out to be anything but, these aspiring journalists recognize an opportunity to seize a career-defining moment. Gloria is an adrenaline rush of a show that skewers the cutthroat, opportunistic culture of modern media.

Gloria is a work place dark comedy that deftly transports the audience from satire to thriller and back again. New York. A city that runs on ambition – and coffee. It's business as usual for a group of disgruntled 20-somethings in the offices of a chic, unnamed Manhattan magazine, where the only subject matter the group can agree on is that they want more than the life they're leading. Ani, Kendra, and Dean are a group of ruthless editorial assistants constantly competing and complaining, vying for their bosses' jobs and a book deal before they're thirty. But trapped between Starbucks runs, jaded gossip and endless cubicle walls, best-selling memoir fodder is thin on the ground – that is until an average workday takes a horrific turn when a co-worker commits an unthinkable act of violence and the stakes for who will get to tell their own story become higher than ever. As the years pass, the survivors struggle with their trauma while simultaneously trying to capitalize off of it with publishing and movie deals. Gloria is a razor-sharp comic drama about ambition, office warfare and hierarchies, where the only thing that matters is moving up the ladder and selling out to the highest bidder.

Gloria premiered in 2015 off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre and was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and one of The New York Times' Best Theater Picks. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and is regularly performed in regional, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 3 female, 3 male (doubling)

What people say:

"[A] whip-smart satire of fear and loathing… Gloria is to the New York publishing business what David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow is to the Hollywood film industry." — The New York Times

"All you need to know is that the bitingly funny and fierce Gloria is one of [2015's] best shows. What playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins says about American society, the media and how we package celebrity and tragedy is as spot-on as it is depressing." — The New York Post

"A shocking, hilarious, and spectacularly honest play." — Chicago Tribune

"Sharply observant and playfully theatrical, this thought-provoking work continues its talented young writer's winning streak. As usual, [Branden Jacobs-Jenkins] handles his serious themes in a thoughtful, provocative manner…the play emerges as a trenchant commentary on the way in which personal tragedies merely serve as grist for the ever-ravenous media machine. A rare example of a contemporary play that keeps us constantly guessing where it's headed, Gloria is a work not to be easily forgotten." — The Hollywood Reporter

About the Playwright:

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is an African-American playwright. He is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, a two-time Obie Award winner, a MacArthur "Genius Grant" Award recipient, and was awarded the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation Theatre Award, among many other honours.