About the Play:

Seascape With Sharks and Dancer has long been a favourite of acting teachers for it's 'two-hander' structure, Female Monologues, Male Monologues, Female/Male Scenes, and its brisk, demanding dialogue.

Seascape With Sharks and Dancer is a full-length drama by Don Nigro. We meet two lonely people who attempt to fuse a relationship that works for both of them, but her deep seated emotional damage keeps forcing her to push him away for fear of getting to close and then having to endure the loss when it's over. Commitment phobia appears to be her first, middle and last names.

Seascape With Sharks and Dancer is set in a beach bungalow. The aspiring novelist who lives there has pulled a lost young woman out of the ocean to save her. As he tries to connect to her, it seems that she doesn't want to be saved nor comforted. She finds herself trapped in his life and torn between her need to come to rest somewhere and her certainty that all human relationships turn eventually into nightmares. The struggle between his tolerant and gently ironic approach to life and her strategy of suspicion and attack becomes a kind of war about love and creation which neither can afford to lose. Seascape With Sharks and Dancer is a dynamic work that takes the audience inside this challenged, volatile, and often abusive relationship of these two young lovers. Their romance unfolds and culminates in tumultuous waves of forgiveness, anger and love.

This fine work in the author's Pendragon cycle of plays, Seascape With Sharks and Dancer enjoyed a sold out, critically acclaimed production in 1984 at the world famous Oregon Shakespeare Festival. This offbeat, wonderful love story contains a wealth of excellent monologue and scene material and has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops.

Cast: 1 female, 1 male

What people say:

"Like the work of Tennessee Williams or Edward Albee, Nigro's play delves into the subterranean content that informs and imperils relationships, seeking to uncover the festering psychic wounds that drive two people to love and hate one another in equal measure." — Seattle Weekly

About the Playwright:

Don Nigro is a prolific American playwright with over 400 works touching on a wide variety of themes including murder mysteries (the Inspector Ruffing series), American history (the Pendragon County plays), Russian life and culture, art and artists, and more. His work has been produced around the world and translated into ten languages. He has twice been a finalist for the National Repertory Theatre Foundation's National Play Award, and has won a Playwriting Fellowship Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as grants from the Ohio Arts Council.