About the Play:

The Year of Magical Thinking is a full-length drama by Joan Didion. Adapted by acclaimed reporter, essayist, and literary icon, Joan Didion from her Pulitzer Prize-nominated memoir of the same name, The Year of Magical Thinking is a stunning and powerful one-woman play about a surreal and overwhelming time in her life, as she faces the loss of her husband, and a year later, their only daughter.

The Year of Magical Thinking is a powerful portrait of marriage, life, death, and mourning. In this dramatic adaptation of Joan Didion's critically lauded, National Book Award-winning memoir, the stages of grief are laid bare offering audiences a lens through which to view her powerful account of the sudden unexpected loss of her husband, novelist John Gregory Dunne, and the illness of their daughter, Quintana. In her grief, Joan Didion found herself living inside self-protective delusions in the form of "magical thinking," for she knows if she falls into the "vortex" of reality, she will be lost. Bringing her trademark style of cool observation, along with a personal and heartbreaking story, Joan Didion has crafted an unforgettable theatrical look at the extraordinary resilience of the human heart that resonates with anyone who has ever loved.

The Year of Magical Thinking premiered in 2007 at at the Booth Theatre on Broadway in New York City, starring Vanessa Redgrave in a solo performance and winning her a Tony nomination, before moving to the National Theatre in London. Since then the play has been produced in cities across the world.

Cast: 1 female

What people say:

"Didion has a peerless ear for the music of words in motion." — The New York Times

"A play that is as intensely intimate as it is universal." — New York Daily News

"Poignant, heartbreaking and wry. In Joan Didion's beautifully written play, the emotions are so genuine we can't help but be affected." — Newsweek

About the Playwright:

Joan Didion (1934-2021) was a groundbreaking American journalist and writer whose best-selling works of fiction, commentary and memoir have received numerous honours and are considered modern classics. The author of five novels, ten books of nonfiction, and a play, she won enormous acclaim for her memoir of grief, The Year of Magical Thinking.