About the Play:

God's Ear has become a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues.

God's Ear is a full-length drama by Jenny Schwartz. A husband and wife have trouble coping with the loss of their son, they find themselves speaking in cliches and the husband travels to forget. The wife stays with their daughter and the tooth fairy and tries to figure out how to cope from home. God's Ear marked the debut of Jenny Schwartz, "an indelibly clever playwright, possessed of linguistic playfulness and a lively sense of rhythm" (Village Voice).

God's Ear introduces the audience to Ted and Mel, a devastated young couple trying to come to terms with their son's accidental death while their marriage and lives begin to disintegrate. Lost in their bizarre labyrinth of grief, Ted seems to continually run into parents with dead children, everything Mel touches turns to stone, and their daughter Lanie starts receiving counselling from a G.I. Joe doll and the Tooth Fairy. It's a lyrically absurd journey of love, loss, and laughter. Through the skilfully disarming use of clichéd language and homilies, God's Ear explores with subtle grace and depth the way the death of a child tears one family apart, while showcasing the talents of a promising young playwright who "in [a] very modern way [is] making a rather old-fashioned case for the power of the written word" (New York Times).

God's Ear premiered in 2007 at the East Thirteenth Street Theatre in New York City, was subsequently produced by the Vineyard Theatre in 2008, and was a 2007 Finalist for the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize honouring the best English-language women writers worldwide. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and has been produced across the US and internationally from Lisbon, Portugal to Boise, Idaho to Sydney, Australia in regional, fringe festival, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 4 female, 3 male

What people say:

"A triumph! An adventurous, arresting new play." — New York Times

"An original and inventive theatrical experience…brilliantly written and staged." — Associated Press

"Magnificent." — Time Out NY

"What a remarkable new voice." — Newsday

"God's Ear packs a wallop! An intriguing, haunting and moving play." — Backstage

About the Playwright:

Jenny Schwartz is a New York-based American playwright noted for her linguistic gifts by many critics. Her awards and honours include the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Benjamin H. Danks Award in Drama, a Kesselring honour, two grants from Lincoln Center's Lecomte Du Nuoy Foundation, and Soho Rep's Dorothy Streslin Playwriting Fellowship. God's Ear and Somewhere Fun were both finalists for the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize honouring the best English-language women writers worldwide. She received an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University, and is a graduate of Juilliard, where she received a fellowship in the Lila Acheson Wallace Playwriting Program.