About the Play:

The Old Settler has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues and Male Monologues.

The Old Settler is a full-length romantic comedy by John Henry Redwood. Sparks fly in a 1943 Harlem tenement between fifty-five year old spinster, Elizabeth Borny, and her skeptical sister, Quilly McGrath when Husband Witherspoon, a handsome young Great Migrator arrives on their doorstep. Husband's quest to find his long-lost love, Lou Bessie, is thwarted when he finds an unexpected new May-December romance. Full of humour and grit, John Henry Redwood's authentic story of American love and survival reverberates with timelessness and warmth.

The Old Settler is the tale of two sisters, Elizabeth ("Bess") Borny a fifty-five year old spinster (or as they were called in those days an "Old Settler") and Quilly McGrath, fifty-three, whose husband has left her for someone else. Set in bustling Harlem, New York in 1943. The two sisters share an apartment and live reserved, dignified, church centred lives. Quilly works as a domestic for a rich white woman and Elizabeth takes in boarders to help her with the rent. Elizabeth rents a room to Husband Witherspoon, a handsome young man in his twenties, who has migrated from the deep south to Harlem in search of his down home sweet heart, Lou Bessie Preston. There is an ominous cloud of tension that hangs over Elizabeth and Quilly's relationship. This tension is further exacerbated when Elizabeth and Husband take to liking each other. Quilly, who doesn't like Husband living with them in the first place, surely doesn't approve of their "carrying on," especially since Elizabeth is old enough to be Husband's mother. It is this May-December romance that exposes a thirty-year-old wound which, until now, only had a bandage – now the wound can heal for the sisters.

The Old Settler premiered in 1997 at McCarter Theater on the campus of Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, winning many honours, including the American Theatre Critics Award. Since then it had regional premieres at professional theatres across the US, becoming one of the most-produced new plays over the next few years. 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: 1 male, 3 female

What people say:

"The Old Settler [is]…Redwood's gentle, sweet-natured comedy about life in Harlem in 1943. It's a play that chooses to remember the good without the bad, being about the relationship of two aging, church-going sisters…and what happens when a handsome young fellow, newly arrived from the Deep South, rents a room in the apartment they share…For all of its decent sentiments, The Old Settler avoids sentimentality. It has the authenticity and lack of pretense of an Early American sampler." — New York Times

"…good naturalism does more than reproduce: It listens with passion and humor, and it shapes what it hears into powerful form…THE OLD SETTLER by John Henry Redwood…presents the lives of two fortyish sisters…Mr. Redwood has said he modeled these sisters on his mother and aunt. It's a lovely play, moving in its pretty unsurprising central anecdote and more moving in its densely textured picture of Harlem life in 1943." — Wall Street Journal

"The poignancy of dashed hopes and the simplicity of human survival will always make the stuff of drama. As will a last chance at love. John Henry Redwood's warm and audience-friendly The Old Settler...hits its target fair and square. There is more humanity and truth here than in many plays superficially far more fancy... Redwood writes with telling conviction...Redwood's command of time, place and character is itself impeccable... We've had some fine plays Off-Broadway this season, and this is one of the best. With all its sentiment, and its heart so pointedly in the right place, it still skillfully avoids heartless sentimentality, making it very much worth seeing." — New York Post

About the Playwright:

John Henry Redwood (1942-2003) was a celebrated African-American playwright. He came to playwriting late in life (his lauded acting career included one-man shows portraying Paul Robeson and Alonzo Fields, the real-life inspiration for the film Lee Daniels' The Butler). He appeared on Broadway in August Wilson's The Piano Lesson and a revival of Guys and Dolls. His film credits include: Passion Fish and Mr. Holland's Opus. He was born in Brooklyn and served in the Marines after high school, later returning to receive a Ph.D in Religion from Fordham University.