About the Play:

Living Out has become a favourite of acting teachers for Female/Female Scenes and Female/Male Scenes.

Living Out is a full-length comedic drama by Lisa Loomer. Focuses on the interwoven plight of a Salvadoran-immigrant nanny – torn between her own kids and her need to make a living – and her employer, an equally ambivalent, guilt-stricken lawyer mom re-entering the Los Angeles working world. Living Out deals with issues of race, class, and immigration law. Especially recommended for school and contest use.

Living Out is the story of a wealthy Los Angeles couple who hire a Salvadoran nanny, only to find that she also has a husband and children of her own to handle. Ana and Nancy, make the same choice to leave their children in the care of others. Both women are smart, hard-working mothers. Both want better lives for their children, but Ana is an undocumented Salvadoran, while Nancy is a high-powered attorney. The story explores the shared humanity between them and the differences wrought by race, class, and Ana's illegal status. The contrast makes for a play that is both funny and tragic as we witness and the emotional cost of leaving your child in the care of others. Through Ana, we understand what it means to leave a child in another country to come here, and the potential cost of sacrificing one's own child in order to care for someone else's. Through Nancy, we understand the pressure on women today to "do it all" and the cost of making that choice. The play also looks at the terror of being undocumented with devastating effects of inequality in our society. How do we make someone "the other"? What is the cost of doing so? Shot through with searing humour and poignant adversity, Living Out is a play that makes us think, feel, and hopefully consider our world.

Living Out premiered in 2003 at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and was a Finalist for the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize honouring the best English-language women writers worldwide. Since then the play had regional premieres at professional theatres across the US. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and is regularly performed in high school and college theatre productions as a showcase of student talent.

Cast: 6 female, 2 male

What people say:

"A stellar new play. Searingly funny. Flawless direction." — The New Yorker

"Both generous and merciless, equally enjoyable and disturbing." — New York Newsday

"A bitingly funny new comedy. The plight of working mothers is explored from two pointedly contrasting perspectives in this sympathetic, sensitive new play." — Variety

"A splendid and thought-provoking slice of life. Living Out manages to achieve in this production a specifically theatrical energy." — New York Post

"Extraordinary. Living Out isn't just engrossing, it's important." — New York Sun

"Lisa Loomer knows how to make a thousand precisely rendered details add up to a devastatingly big picture." — Wall Street Journal

"Living Out stands out as a crisp, intelligent entertainment. Lisa Loomer's sharp observations and agile sense of humor turn what could have been a predictable, torn-from-the-headlines play into a perceptive look at the social minefield of parenting." — Back Stage

About the Playwright:

Lisa Loomer is an American playwright and screenwriter of Spanish and Romanian ancestry who has also worked as an actress and stand-up comic. She is best known for her plays The Waiting Room and Living Out, which are taught in university drama programs, Women's Studies programs, and Latino Studies programs. She was twice nominated for a Pulitzer and also has received an Imagen Award for positive portrayals of Latinos in all media.