Educator's Packet

Basic Facts of the Script:
-The play is set in West Texas, in the early Fall. The setting is the living room and front porch of a small, white frame house.
Plot:
-Set on the front porch and in the living room of a conservative Texas home, the play tells the story of two teenagers whose sexual awakening has been severely hampered by the fundamentalist fervor that runs like power lines through the Bible Belt. A comic first scene, set on the porch of Whitney’s home, details his attempts to seduce the puritanical Carlyle after he’s just been elected president of the Youth Ministry at the Church picnic. Carlyle coyly refuses his advances, citing everything from teen pregnancy to hellfire and damnation as reasons to abstain. In a dramatic second scene, Carlyle seeks Whitney’s help after she has been the victim of a sexual assault. Rather than face the grim reality of her experience, Carlyle transforms the attack from an act of violence to a vision of glory, in which the bodies of her assailants become the angels torn from the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and the alcohol they forced upon her becomes the blood of Christ. As Carlyle’s delusions grow, Whitney must convince her of the unfortunate truth. Together they struggle to wed their simplistic religious doctrine with the often painful complexity of the real world.

Author:
-The author Doug Wright was born in 1962 in Dallas, Texas. He is a playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. He earned his bachelor's degree from Yale University in 1985 and he earned his M.F.A. from New York University. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild and serves on the board of New York Theatre Workshop. He has written several plays including: I am my own wife, Quills, Dinosaurs, The Stonewater Rapture, Watbanaland, and Interrogating the Nude. He also wrote the Musicals: The Little Mermaid, Grey Gardens, and Buzzsaw Berkeley.
He received several awards such as the 2004 Tony Award for Best Play- I am my own wife, the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Drama- I am my own wife, the 2005 Lambda Literary Award- I am my own wife and the 2006 Toleranzpreis Europa- I am my own wife.

Questions:
1. How did you want to affect the community with this production?
2. What problems arose during the production process?
3. How did the actors prepare emotionally for their roles?
4. What time period did you set the play in? And why?
5. With the issues surrounding the play was the time period selected to emphasize the issues?