Acclaimed for his gentle, complex characterizations, Samuel D. Hunter's bighearted and funny plays explore the quiet desperation running through many American lives. The Whale tells the story of a six hundred-pound shut-in's last chance at redemption and of discovering beauty in the most unexpected places when he reaches out to his long-estranged—and severely unhappy—daughter. Hunter's second piece, the Obie Award-winning A Bright New Boise, is a philosophical investigation of faith and search for meaning in rural Idaho where a disgraced evangelical is forced to take a minimum-wage job at the local Hobby Lobby craft store in an effort to reunite with his estranged son.
Price: $17.95
Pages: 200
Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
Imprint: Theatre Communications Group
Publication Date:
30 September 2014
Trim Size: 8.50 X 5.38 in
ISBN: 9781559364607
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
DRAMA / American / General, FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Parenting / Fatherhood, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Death & Dying, DRAMA / LGBTQ+
Praise for A Bright New Boise
"A dark, droll and ultimately explosive work... Funny, compassionate and disturbing all at once, Hunter's quintessentially American scenario portrays an individual trapped in an emotional and cultural wasteland, his life configured by uncaring impersonal forces, his spirit hobbled by unnamed guilt." -Deborah Klugman, LA Weekly
"A simple, superb little heartland heartbreaker... This is a rube tragedy--a respectful and honest-feeling one, for a change, with unquenchable humor and scrupulous emotional honesty--and by jingo, it sings." -Scott Brown, New York
"Exhilarating... A Bright New Boise is an unsparing account of the hunger pangs in the barren American gut... Hunter has such highly sensitive antennae for the look and rhythm of mundane places that A Bright New Boise develops an authentic texture, separate from other pieces in its genre." -Peter Marks, Washington Post
"Despite the crisp wind of despair that blows through Samuel D. Hunter's beautifully realized A Bright New Boise, this clear-eyed comedy about faith's meager harvest will still lift your heart. Some of it is simple delight in craft... The rest of our pleasures lie in Hunter's gentle characterizations, a plot that mingles absurdity and genuine philosophical investigation." -Helen Shaw, TimeOut New York
"An anxious, funny look at the messianic and the mundane in America... Hunter delivers these characters and their crucibles with tenderness and rage. For all its mistrust of religion, the play is a kind of prayer." -Charles Isherwood, New York Times
Samuel D. Hunter’s plays include The Whale (2013 Drama Desk Award, 2013 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, Drama League and Outer Critics Circle nominations for Best Play), A Bright New Boise (2011 Obie Award for Playwriting, 2011 Drama Desk nomination for Best Play), The Few, A Great Wilderness, and Rest. Sam is the winner of a 2012 Whiting Writers Award, the 2013 Otis Guernsey New Voices Award, the 2011 Sky Cooper Prize, and the 2008-2009 PONY Fellowship. He is a member of New Dramatists, an Ensemble Playwright at Victory Gardens, a Core Member of The Playwrights’ Center, a member of Partial Comfort Productions, and is currently a Resident Playwright at Arena Stage. A native of northern Idaho, Sam lives in NYC. He holds degrees in playwriting from NYU, The Iowa Playwrights Workshop, and Juilliard. In 2014, Mr. Hunter was awarded a prestigious "genius" grant from the MacArthur Foundation.
