About the Play:

The Water Children is a full-length drama by Wendy MacLeod. When a pro-choice actress lands a high-paying role in a commercial for the right-to-life movement, the battle of reproductive rights gets personal. Unexpected romance, an activist roommate and a right-to-life zealot raise important challenges and questions in this funny and insightful drama that is still very relevant to today's political discussion.

The Water Children is about a young woman named Megan, an actress walking the line between "ingenue" and "Mom." When she loses a big role to the next hot young thing, her agent convinces her to take a well-paid commercial for Life Force, an anti-abortion group. Megan, having had an abortion at the age of 16, and being pro-choice, is conflicted about the job, but she can't afford to say no. To her surprise, she finds herself falling for Randall, the organization's charismatic leader. He was once an anti-Vietnam War protester whose opposition to killing led him to the pro-life movement. Megan and Randall hit it off and they try to put their personal beliefs aside. Romance ensues and is then shattered when Randall's colleagues become militant and Megan, for the second time in her life, finds herself with an unexpected pregnancy. It sends her on the personal journey of her life, spinning into her past, magnifying her present, and leaving her completely at a loss as to her future. To get away from it all, she accepts a job in a Japanese commercial. In Japan, she learns of the shrines where women can go and apologize to their aborted children, who are called mikuzo, which means "water children." She makes a pilgrimage to the temple and learns that in Japan there is no stigma against abortion, where it is believed it is best not to bring a child into difficult circumstances. While at the shrine, Megan meets the soul of the child she aborted those many years ago and finally makes her own peace and a decision about the child she's now carrying.

The Water Children premiered in 1997 at Playwrights Horizons as a co-production with The Women's Project and was subsequently done at L.A.'s Matrix Theater where it was cited as "the most challenging political play of 1998" by the L.A. Weekly and earned six L.A. Drama Critics Circle nominations.

Cast: 4 female, 4 male

What people say:

"With its mixture of romance, humor and sadness as it addresses the issue of abortion, The Water Children, by Wendy MacLeod, is a fascinating play." — New York Times

"The Water Children…is simply the most intelligent and entertaining play of the season…A work tackling the ticklish issue of abortion as viewed by assorted pro-choicers, pro-lifers, and hetero- and homosexuals holds genuine promise along with a plethora of pitfalls. It is to Miss MacLeod's considerable credit that she fulfills most of the former while sidestepping most of the latter. Her seriocomic piece is as gripping as it is amusing and, best of all, abundantly stimulates thought." — New York Magazine

"…in The Water Children…the writing is even handed, cogent and captivating; an articulate debate touched with…passion and astringent comedy." — Village Voice

"…there are a number of ethical questions raised here that are well worth pondering long after leaving the theatre. Besides exploring different sides of the abortion argument, MacLeod gracefully illustrates the inner turmoil that a woman goes through when making the difficult decision to terminate a pregnancy." — BackStage

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."