About the Play:

Jack and Jill won the 1997 American Theatre Critics Association Award for Best New Play

Jack and Jill is a full-length romantic comedy by Jane Martin. While most romances focus on falling in love with that special someone, Jack and Jill explores what happens after two people find the right fit. From an awkward courtship to marital bliss and beyond, this two-hander playfully portrays the hard work of love that requires balancing intimacy with commitment, self discovery, and personal change.

Jack and Jill examines the many labours of love in a modern comedy of manners. Jack and Jill are two very different people. He is immediately drawn to her and begins to pursue her. Packed with breakneck-paced text, comedic human moments and compelling visuals, Jack and Jill struggle through the world of male feelings and feminist ideas in an effort to find and maintain love. While most romantic comedies focus on the search for Mr. or Ms. Right, Jack and Jill dissects the trials and tribulations that come after the fall – when Mr. and Mrs. Right question whether there really exists such a person and ponder: how can I be in love without losing myself? Such questions of identity give Jack and Jill a psychological realism that few contemporary plays can match. There's no special reason they should fall for each other, but fall they do, as Jack and Jill follows the couple through courtship, marriage, disillusionment, and perhaps, finally, hope. Can love endure when the road is so fraught with obstacles? Jack and Jill will have to realize how vital they are to each other. Then again, true love has always been worth the effort.

Jack and Jill premiered in 1996 at the famed Actors Theatre of Louisville as part of the annual Festival of New American Plays, an influential showplace for playwrights. Since then the play has been produced in professional theatres and fringe festivals and has been mounted by colleges and community theatres.

Cast: 1 female, 1 male, and 4 any gender

What people say:

"There's humor, there's pathos, but mostly there's yearning throughout." — Rocky Mountain News

"Actors Theatre audiences have come to count on playwright Jane Martin… for an undeniably superior play. She's done it again with Jack and Jill. Martin has delivered another hit." — Louisville Courier Journal

"By turns wickedly funny, sensual, and fierce, this poignant drama captured the essential humanity of relationships – for better or worse." — Backstage

About the Playwright:

Jane Martin, apparently from Kentucky, has been referred to as "America's best known, unknown playwright". The name Jane Martin is widely believed to be a pseudonym. She has been nominated for the Pulitzer prize, and won the American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award twice. But she has never made any public appearances or spoken about any of her works. Nor has she ever given an interview. No biographical details are known about her. No photographs of Ms. Martin have ever been published.