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How I Learned to Drive
How I Learned to Drive
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Author: Paula Vogel Publisher: Dramatists Play Service Format: Softcover # of Pages: 60 Pub. Date: 1997 ISBN-10: 08222162310 ISBN-13: 9780822216230 Cast Size: 3 female, 2 male
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About the Play: How I Learned to Drive has long
been a favourite of acting teachers for female monologues and female/male
scenes.
How I Learned to Drive is a full-length comedic drama by
Paula Vogel. An unflinching portrait of the darkest of family
secrets, with a young girl's uncle-by-marriage teaching her to drive
but intent on getting much more from his niece. How I Learned to Drive is the story of a woman
who learns the rules of the road and life from behind the wheel.
How I Learned to Drive is set in rural Maryland, "before
the malls took over." From behind the wheel of a 1956 Chevy, a
young girl named Li'l Bit, from a tightly knit lower-middle-class
family, navigates the tangled boulevards of her adolescence,
reflecting on her complex and troubling relationship with her family. A fragmented memory play, as told by the 40-year-old Li'l Bit looking back on her teenage self, the old secrets and fresh discoveries abound as she struggles to
accept her past and the demons that live there. An artful,
surprising, and often-funny memory play that explores how we are
shaped by the people who hurt us, this Pulitzer Prize-winning play
chronicles one woman's journey to break the cycle – and silence –
surrounding her sexual abuse at the hands of a charismatic uncle who impacts her past, present and future life.
A story of boundaries, personal agency, and how hindsight is not
always 20/20, How I Learned
to Drive has earned its place in the contemporary
American theatre canon and achieves a powerful new resonance in the
era of #MeToo and #TimesUp.
How I Learned to Drive opened in 1997 in New York and ran
off-Broadway for 14 months. The play won several awards including the
1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, an Obie, a Drama Desk Award and a New
York Drama Critics' Award. The Broadway premiere of Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece was in 2022 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. The play has become a
favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and is
regularly performed in regional and college theatre productions.
Cast: 3 female, 2 male (flexible casting)
What people say:
"Ms. Vogel has written a
lovely, harrowing guide to the crippling persistence of one woman's
memories." — New York Times
"…How I Learned to Drive
is a tremendous achievement, genuine and genuinely disturbing…This
is, quite simply, the sweetest and most forgiving play ever written
about child abuse…Vogel's delicate tactic makes sense not only as a
way to redouble the dramatic effect, but as a representation of
reality, a perfect case of the form fitting the subject." —
Village Voice
"With subtle humor and teasing
erotic encounters, Vogel addresses the dangerous intersections of
teenage temptation. She also paints a richly poetic and picturesque
landscape…The play is a potent and convincing comment on a taboo
subject, and its impact sneaks up on its audience." —
Variety
"…How I Learned to Drive
turns out to be a most compelling ride." — BackStage
About the Playwright:
Paula Vogel is an American playwright and university
professor. One of the most widely produced and honoured playwrights
writing in the English language, her work has garnered numerous
awards and prizes including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Susan Smith
Blackburn Award, New York Drama Critics Award, Obie Award, AT&T
New Plays Award, among many others, as well as fellowships from the
Pew Charitable Trust, National Endowment for the Arts, and the John
Simon Guggenheim Foundation. She is currently the Eugene O'Neill
Professor and Chair of the Department of Playwriting at Yale
University.
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