About the Play:

I Never Sang for My Father has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Male Monologues, Female/Male Scenes, and Male/Male Scenes.

I Never Sang for My Father is a full-length drama by Robert Anderson. A classic family drama that probes into the disquieting alienation that can exist between a father and son – an estrangement that, despite the best intentions of both parties, is often deepened with age and unhealed by time. I Never Sang for My Father is a heartwarming play that is deeply moving and strikes a universal chord on the subjects of family, aging and loss.

I Never Sang for My Father is the story of Gene, a widower, with an elderly mother whom he loves and an eighty-year-old father, whom he has never loved, hard as he tried. The father has been mayor of a small town in Westchester County, self-made and highly respected. Beneath these trappings, however, he is a mean, unloving and ungenerous man, who has driven his daughter away because of her marriage to a Jew and has alienated his son through his possessiveness, his selfishness and his endless reminiscences. Suddenly the mother dies, and Gene is faced with the responsibility of having the father on his hands just at a time when he wants to remarry and move to California. There are a series of dramatic confrontations when Alice, the sister, who has defied her father, pleads with Gene not to take on the burden of the old man and ruin his life; when the penurious father and son have to pick out a coffin for the mother; and the final episode in which Gene tries once again to rouse in himself affection for his father and succeeds, but only for a moment. For it is still not possible for him to "sing" for his father – to understand and be understood, to give the love he so wants to give, and to feel it all will be accepted, and appreciated, by his father, who cannot love. I Never Sang for My Father courageously takes on the huge themes of familial love and devotion, individual aspiration and obligation, honing in on the unvarnished realities in the lives of one family, infecting and challenging all of their relationships. Robert Anderson never takes a side, never passes judgment on any of his characters. He bravely lets each member of this family speak for themselves.

I Never Sang for My Father premiered in 1968 at Longacre Theatre on Broadway in New York City and was nominated for a Tony Award. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and been performed in regional, middle school, high school, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 4 female, 7 male (several of the male roles are small parts).

What people say:

"…written with skill, insight and feeling…." — New York Post

"…a playwright of deep compassion." — New York Newsday

"…an absorbing, touching and – when the right time comes – exciting drama…." — New York Daily News

About the Playwright:

Robert Woodruff Anderson (1917-2009) was an American playwright, screenwriter, and theatre producer. Born in New York City, he received undergraduate and graduate degrees from Harvard University, where he began writing for the stage. He was among the theatre's most visible, serious playwrights of the 1950s and 1960s with six plays on Broadway between 1953 and 1971. He was also a superb screenwriter, twice nominated for an Oscar, but it was his stage work that brought him the most fame. His plays have been produced professionally and in community and college theatres all over the world.