About the Play:

Oh, Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad is a full-length dark comedy by Arthur Kopit. An overbearing mother brings her son and the body of her dead husband, carried in his coffin, to the Caribbean for a vacation in Arthur Kopit's black farce about the most dysfunctional family imaginable.

Oh, Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad is an antic, absurdest black comedy that tells the bizarre tale of the most dysfunctional family imaginable. Wealthy, domineering Madame Rosepettle with her neurotic son Jonathan as they travel to a Caribbean island with their wild entourage: two Venus Flytraps; a cat-eating piranha; a priceless stamp, coin, and book collection; and Madame Rosepettle's taxidermied dead husband in a coffin. Rosalie, the attractive babysitter from the couple next door "who never come home" attempts to seduce Jonathan and proves a formidable opponent to Madame herself. Facetiously described by the playwright as "a Pseudoclassical Tragifarce in a Bastard French Tradition," it also launched the career of one of America's most daring and versatile playwrights, and is just as lively and funny, if not as shocking, as it was more than fifty years ago.

Arthur Kopit wrote Oh, Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad soon after graduating from Harvard, where it had its first performance in the Agassiz Theatre in January, 1960. Within a month it was snatched up by New York agents. It was an Off-Broadway sensation in 1962 at the Phoenix Repertory Theatre in New York City and moved to the Morosco Theatre on Broadway (directed by Jerome Robbins) in 1963. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and is regularly performed in regional repertory, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 2 women, 4 men, room for extras

What people say:

"Oh Dad not only delights, shocks, and entertains, but also offers the valuable opportunity to reflect on the darker sides of the human psyche and family dynamics." — DC Metro Arts

"Oh Dad is an exotic meal, but certainly one worth sampling... Kopit sets up the improbable spectacle of Oedipal proportions as a careful balance of light and dark." — DC Theatre Scene

About the Playwright:

Arthur Kopit (1937-2021) was an acclaimed American playwright whose writing career spanned seven decades. A two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and a three-time Tony Award nominee, he is known for his signature play Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad. He also wrote the scripts for several TV miniseries, and collaborated with Maury Yeston on the Tony Award-winning musical Nine.