About the Play:

Serenading Louie has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Male Monologues, Female/Female Scenes, Female/Male Scenes, and Male/Male Scenes.

Serenading Louie is a full-length drama by Lanford Wilson. Two modern couples, almost unknowingly, have come to crisis points in their lives – and marriages. This powerful, eloquent and imaginatively structured play centres on Carl and Alex, friends since college, who are struggling to deal with the harsh realities of adulthood as they enter their 30s. Disillusioned by work and struggling to keep their marriages alive, they are desperately trying to make sense of it all.

Serenading Louie is about two married couples. Carl and Alex, friends since college, are now in their thirties. Carl and his wife Mary have a daughter while Alex and his wife Gaby haven't yet taken that step. The outwardly happily married couples are each privately trying to deal with their own demons. Ex-football star Carl puts on a brave face and tries to ignore the fact that his wife Mary is having a long-term affair with a co-worker of his. Meanwhile, Carl's best friend Alex has become disinterested in his chatty, insecure wife Gabrielle and has recently started a relationship with a 17-year-old college co-ed. In one evening, both couples come together to examine their plight and to probe the genesis of their unhappiness the play moves deftly in and out of the frame of reality – with the characters talking sometimes to each other and sometimes directly to the audience. Ultimately, out of the fascinating mosaic of conversations, confessions and reminiscences, a sense of deeper understanding begins to emerge, and, with it, the liberating knowledge of the loneliness that must exist within marriage and of the crucial commitment that individuals must make if they are truly and effectively to share their lives with others. A portrait of two suburban American couples exploring the destruction of their dreams and the loss of passion and purpose.

Serenading Louie premiered in 1970 at the Washington Theater Club in Washington, DC. While the underrated play is rarely performed professionally, Lanford Wilson's intimate examination of marriage in suburbia has enjoyed revivals Off-Broadway in 1976, 1984, and 2005, in London in 2010. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and is regularly performed in regional, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 2 female, 2 male

What people say:

"…has the fascination, the intelligence, the humanity and the natural rhythm of all Wilson…Make no mistake about it — such writing represents mastery of craft." — New York Post

"…an incredibly moving play…." — Soho Weekly News

"…Wilson has written a masterful play on the fragility of self-image…." — Women's Wear Daily

"Exploring our complex responses to critical life events is playwright Lanford Wilson's forte. His plays are firmly grounded in the subtle nuances of character – no falling chandeliers, no helicopters. Instead, he snares us with the wealth of human nature, in all its confounding, funny and tragic dimensions ... The play may be set in 1971, but its dissection of dysfunctional relationships rings a disconcertingly timely chord." — Los Angeles Times

"Penned more than 30 years ago, the rarely revived Serenading Louie follows this author's typical early pattern of avoiding great complexities of plot or ideology, and focusing instead on unhappy characters who are eventually forced to reveal their hidden anxieties and disappointments ... It still packs a big emotional punch, especially for those who feel like they have somehow settled for less than they deserve on either a personal or professional level." — Chicago Tribune

"Serenading Louie is a seldom performed play that really needs to be seen … the glorious language, and the uncomfortable yet familiar realism in marriage that is showcased here deserves an audience." — DC Theatre Scene

About the Playwright:

Lanford Wilson (1937-2011) was one of the most distinguished American playwrights of the late 20th century. He was instrumental in drawing attention to Off-Off Broadway, where his first works were staged in the mid-1960s. He was also among the first playwrights to move from that milieu to renown on wider stages, ascending to Off Broadway, and then to Broadway, within a decade of his arrival in New York. His work has also long been a staple of regional theaters throughout the United States. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980, was elected in 2001 to the Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2004 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.