The Age of Beauty

category: full length one-act
genre: comedy
running time: ninety minutes
setting: A restaurant in New York; a house in Oakland; a train between the two
period: contemporary

characters:
Pauline, a waitress
Susan, an actress in her early thirties
Regina, an art teacher in her mid-thirties
Imogen, a writer in her mid-thirties
Jenny, a television producer in her mid-thirties
Lisa, an heiress in her mid-thirties
Deva, an office manager in her mid-thirties
Vera, Pauline’s ex-girlfriend

story:
In New York, Susan and Regina are re-united for the first time after a decade of not speaking, and over lunch they dance around the possibility of rekindling their friendship. In Oakland, long-distance friends Imogen and Jenny are having lunch during Imogen’s visit to the Bay Area following the birth of Jenny’s first child and the publication of Imogen’s book about their mutual past. On a train between Oakland and New York, Lisa and Deva, who have been attending the same yoga class for the last year, negotiate taking their budding friendship to a deeper level. In separate places, Pauline and Vera each contemplate the end of their romantic relationship with one another, and how we process a relationship that has run its course.

author’s comments:
This deceptively small and simple play took over three years to write and is now one of my favorites, a little gem of a show. First inspired by actress Kendra Arimoto’s request for a simple, all-female comedy that could really show off the talents of two actresses, the script evolved from one long scene with Susan and Regina into a ninety minute experiment in structure and conversation, three scenes introduced and book-ended by monologues ruminating on nostalgia, friendship, time, mortality and how we forgive and forget about the people and things that have happened to us as we age. The final draft of this play emerged during a nine performance workshop done at the EXIT Theatre, which was kind enough to co-produce, and allowed me to spend six weeks working with four incredible actresses who advised while I refined and helped bring the voices of these women, all of whom have appeared in other plays I’ve written, to the most fully realized version of themselves yet. A bittersweet love-letter to the bittersweetness of living life and knowing people, real or imaginary, for a long, long time, I finally wrote a small cast full-length that can be done anywhere. A real achievement in my development as a writer.

Productions:

No Nude Men Productions, August 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 2013, produced in association with The EXIT Theatre, in the EXIT Studio in San Francisco, California. Directed by Stuart Bousel; Art by Cody Rishell; Lighting by Wil Turner IV; Sound by James Lively. Cast: Megan Briggs (Pauline/Deva), Sylvia Hathaway (Regina/Jenny), Allison Page (Lisa/Vera), Emma Rose Shelton (Susan/Imogen)

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