About the Play:

In the Blood has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues, Male Monologues, Female/Female Scenes, Female/Male Scenes, and Male/Male Scenes.

In the Blood is a full-length drama by Suzan-Lori Parks. The complex and provocative story of an unwed mother's struggle to raise her children while holding onto her own belief in love. An unflinching and incendiary look at motherhood, race and poverty, In The Blood serves as a bold and challenging work by one of America's greatest modern playwrights: Suzi Lori Parks.

In the Blood is considered a modern day riff on the Nathaniel Hawthorne classic The Scarlet Letter about a woman scorned (for adultery) by her community. Hester La Negrita, a homeless mother of five, lives with her kids on the tough streets of the inner city. Her eldest child is teaching her how to read and write, but the letter "A" is, so far, the only letter she knows. Her five kids are named Jabber, Bully, Trouble, Beauty and Baby, and the characters are played by adult actors who double as five other people in Hester's life: her ex-boyfriend, her social worker, her doctor, her best friend and her minister. While Hester's kids fill her life with joy – lovingly comical moments amid the harsh world of poverty – the adults with whom she comes into contact only hold her back. Nothing can stop the play's tragic end.

In the Blood premiered in 1999 at the Joseph Papp Theater off-Broadway in New York. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and has been performed in regional repertory, high school, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 3 female, 3 male, with doubling

What people say:

"…extraordinary new play… taut and packed… Ms. Parks' writing has grown leaner and hungrier… In the Blood is about the way we live now, and it is truly harrowing… You will leave… feeling pity and terror. And because it is a work of art, you will leave thrilled, even comforted by its mastery…." — The New York Times

"Ms. Parks is a beautiful writer and her new play an important one…." — The New York Observer

"The issues are gripping, the characters are dynamite … a must-see play." — BackStage

About the Playwright:

Suzan-Lori Parks is an African-American playwright and screenwriter. She was the recipient of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Topdog/Underdog, becoming the first African-American woman to receive the prestigious award. Her first feature film, Girl 6, was directed by Spike Lee. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, where she studied with James Baldwin, she has taught creative writing in universities across the US, including at the Yale School of Drama, and she heads the Dramatic Writing Program at CalArts.