About the Play:

Gruesome Playground Injuries has become a favourite of acting teachers for it's 'two-hander' structure and its brisk, demanding dialogue.

Gruesome Playground Injuries is a full-length a dark comedy by Rajiv Joseph. The dark romantic saga, Gruesome Playground Injuries, explores the cost of wounded friendships. Over the course of 30 years, the lives of Kayleen and Doug intersect at the most bizarre intervals, leading the two childhood friends to compare scars and the physical calamities that keep drawing them together.

Gruesome Playground Injuries follows Kayleen and Doug over three decades, from their first meeting in a school nurse's office into an adulthood filled with scars, heartbreaks, and other wounds that never quite heal. The characters share a unique bond of friendship, viscera, blood, scar tissue, and unspoken love. Their often tenuous connection grows stronger through a lifetime of injuries, as they discover the only thing that can really heal them is each other. Doug believes that Kayleen is his guardian angel and her touch is what mends his wounds. Kayleen's profound trauma from the abandonment of her mother and asshole father doesn't allow for the acceptance of Dougs love. Gruesome Playground Injuries delves into themes of love, loss, and the physical and emotional scars we carry throughout our lives.

Gruesome Playground Injuries had its world premiere in 2009 at the Alley Theater in Houston, Texas; it’s next staging in 2010 at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, DC; and it’s Off-Broadway production opened in January 2011 at Second Stage Theatre. 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: 1 female, 1 male

What people say:

"Rajiv Joseph is an artist of original talent." — New York Times

"Irresistibly odd and exciting…This darkly humorous drama is Rajiv Joseph's most satisfying work." — New York Daily News

"This wondrous strange two-hander finds as much humor as horror in the play's bizarre events." — Variety

"Mystical, arresting, and quirkily amusing." — Washington Post

About the Playwright:

Rajiv Joseph is a highly lauded American playwright from Cleveland, Ohio. He was named a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Bengal Tiger At The Baghdad Zoo, and he won an Obie Award for Best New American Play in 2018 for his play Describe The Night. He received his BA in Creative Writing from Miami University and his MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.