About the Play:

Vanities is a full-length dramatic comedy by Jack Heifner. Set at three points from the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s, Vanities is a powerful piece that spans the lives of three high school girls as they grow from the women they expect to become into the women they truly became. Especially recommended for school and contest use.

Vanities chronicles the lives of three girlfriends from their days together as Texas high-school cheerleaders to their days apart as adults living out their lives in and around New York City. In 1963, Joanne, Kathy, and Mary are aggressively vivacious cheerleaders. Five years later in their college sorority house, they are confronting their futures with nervous jauntiness. In 1974, they reunite briefly in New York. Their lives have diverged and their friendship, which once thrived on assumptions as well-coordinated as sweater sets, is strained and ambiguous. Old time banter rings false. Their attempts at honest conversation only show they can no longer afford to have very much in common.

Vanities premiered in 1976 off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons and transferred to the Chelsea Theatre Center (now the Westside Theatre). It ran for five years in New York and became one of the longest running and most produced comedies in off-Broadway history. One of those rare scripts that offer more than one juicy female role, the play enjoyed widespread acceptance among leading regional theatres, and has become a popular choice for school and community theatre productions.

Cast: 3 female

What people say:

"Unnervingly funny... Fast moving, sneakily stinging dialogue." — Newsweek

"Uncommonly attractive." — New York Magazine

"Harwood's fierce moral debate is set in the American zone of occupied Berlin in 1946. The play acts as a powerful metaphor for the present and all those post-authoritarian societies busy ransacking their pasts." — The Guardian (UK)

"Harwood's fierce moral debate is set in the American zone of occupied Berlin in 1946. The play acts as a powerful metaphor for the present and all those post-authoritarian societies busy ransacking their pasts." — The Independent (London)

"Harwood's fierce moral debate is set in the American zone of occupied Berlin in 1946. The play acts as a powerful metaphor for the present and all those post-authoritarian societies busy ransacking their pasts." — Evening Standard (London)

About the Playwright:

Jack Heifner is an internationally acclaimed American playwright. He is best known for the play version of Vanities, which ran for five years in New York, and became one of the longest-running plays in off-Broadway history. He is also the author of more than 30 other plays produced in New York, Los Angeles and theatres around the world. He has written for television and film, as well as the book to six musicals.