About the Play:

The volume The Shallow End and The Lost Colony contains two one-act plays by Wendy MacLeod. From an extraordinary female playwright, two comic, yet touching looks at what it means to be young and gain your first taste of adult awareness. The Shallow End follows the twists and turns of four teenage girl's summer friendship. The Lost Colony is about a couple vacationing with their daughter and her boyfriend.

In The Shallow End, Teresa, Becca and Addie, best friends, lounge around a pool talking about their tans, and, of course, boys and clothes, while they constantly make fun of Marjorie, a non-member of their clique. Over a period of days they become fascinated by Marjorie's friend Brendan, a boy with a heart condition, expected to die at any moment (which makes him romantic). Addie finds Brendan cute and the other girls convince her to approach him. Rather than befriending the boy, she finds that Marjorie is not the "dufus" Teresa and Becca claim she is. Days later the girls hear that Brendan has died, more grist for the gossip mill, which Addie finds too distasteful. In the final scene, Teresa and Becca cannot believe that Addie has left their circle to sit with Marjorie, an insult they can't even begin to understand – whatever could be wrong with her? (Premiered in 1992 at Ensemble Studio Theater; Cast: 4 female)

In The Lost Colony, Mr. and Mrs. Lang are vacationing with their daughter Stevie and her boyfriend, Jack. The two couples banter back and forth about where to have dinner, what sights to see and eventually about the states of their relationships. The ideals of the older couple clash with those of the younger's. Stevie, it seems, is much more interested in men who are disinterested while Jack only wants to settle down with Stevie. Mr. and Mrs. Lang's attitudes are simply practical: A man must have a job he hates so he can support the family he loves, according to Mr. Lang; and a woman should find a man who will love her even if he doesn't say it and all he gives her for Christmas is a broom, says his wife. The comfort may be there for her parents, but Stevie may not be convinced, even when Jack says he'll leave her if she doesn't find it within herself to commit. (Premiered in 1991 at Manhattan Class Company; Cast: 2 female, 2 male)

What people say:

"Evocative, speaks with clarity and humor." — New York Times

"…sensitively drawn." — Village Voice

"…wacky, off-beat comedy of colorful characters." — Twin Cities Reader

About the Playwright:

Wendy MacLeod is an American playwright. She is Professor of Drama and James Michael playwright-in-residence at her alma mater, Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. Best known for the critically acclaimed Women in Jeopardy!, she is the author of some two dozen plays, many informed by what drama critic Kevin Carr called a "spirit of witty and satirical, female-centric humor."