About the Play:

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

Trying is a full-length drama by Joanna McClelland Glass. A richly scripted, semi-autobiographical two-hander about the arrival and acclimatization of a young Canadian secretary into the well-worn life of a brilliant and irascible old retired judge, a one-time US Attorney General. Trying illustrates how two strangers, at two dramatically different places in their lives, can unexpectedly develop a life-altering friendship.

Trying is the story of the internationally known Francis Biddle, Chief Judge of the Nuremberg trials, opponent of the Japanese internment camps during World War II, and Attorney General under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The play is set in 1967 when the 81-year-old retired judge is trying to complete his memoirs within the year he believes he will die. Elegant, but sharply cantankerous, he struggles with the inevitability of his age and failing health. His wife has forced upon him a new secretary named Sarah Schorr (a young woman from Saskatchewan who is idling in a mediocre marriage). She follows the fourth woman who has quit or been fired from her position. The feisty judge soon meets his match in the equally feisty Canadian girl as they navigate working together in rapidly changing times. The author was the secretary in this true story based on the her experience during 1967-1968 when she worked for Francis Biddle at his home in Washington, D.C. The two are "trying" to understand each other in what Judge Biddle knows is the final year of his life. Trying is a warm and thoughtful play that confronts the inevitability of death, as well as the heartfelt hope of new life.

Trying premiered in 2004 at Victory Gardens Theatre in Chicago. The production was lauded by critics and audiences alike, won Chicago's prestigious Jefferson Award for Best New Play, and transferred to an Off-Broadway run at the Promenade Theater on New York's Upper West Side and was a Finalist for the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize honouring the best English-language women writers worldwide. Its Canadian premiere was in 1986 at the 25th Street Theatre in Saskatoon. The Canadian premiere was in 2004 at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, followed by a Canadian Stage Company production in Toronto in 2005. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops, has enjoyed many productions in the United States, Canada, and Australia, and remains a popular choice for school and community theatre productions.

Cast: 1 female, 1 male

What people say:

"Comic and touching." — The New York Times

"Trying is a portrait of generational reconciliation. It is enormously bracing theatre." — New York Daily News

"Trying is a beautifully written, delicate and engaging two-hander." — The Globe and Mail

"Unquestionably a Pulitzer Prize contender." — Chicago Sun-Times

"The number one rated show in New York." — Zagat Theater Survey

"Exquisitely literate, moving and compelling." — Variety

About the Playwright:

Joanna McClelland Glass is a Tony-nominated Canadian playwright. Born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, she studied theatre in high school and developed her abilities in community theatre. Shortly after moving to Calgary to work for a radio station, she won a scholarship to study acting at the Pasadena Playhouse. She then moved to New York, where she began to write. Her plays have been produced on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in many North American regional theatres, as well as in England, Ireland, Australia, and Germany.