donate
adopt an artist
join our mailing list"In actuality, there's probably no Shakespeare that Woman's Will wouldn't do well...Woman's Will is no-nonsense theatre brimming with intelligence and passion." - Chad Jones,
Oakland Tribune
The Clean House
Sarah Ruhl
Jodi Schiller
Mathilde, recently orphaned due to a very funny joke, helps three doctors and a mistress put their houses in order in this heartbreakingly sweet take on American ways of life.
2006 MacArthur Fellow Ruhl is also the author of Eurydice, which played to acclaim at Berkeley Rep in 2004 and In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), appearing there January - March 2009. The Clean House won the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2004 and was a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist.
Ruhl's inspiration for her Pulitzer contender, The Clean House, came from a chance remark overheard at a party."My cleaning lady is depressed and won't clean my house," a doctor at the party said. "So I took her to the hospital and had her medicated. And she still won't clean!"
Gaia Arts Center
2120 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA 94704
1 October – 10 October 2009, Thurs, Fri, Sat at 8pm
Buriel Clay Theater
762 Fulton Street, San Francisco, CA 94102
16 October – 24 October 2009, Fri, Sat at 8pm, Sun 18 Oct. at 2pm
Bios
Playwright Sarah Ruhl was born in Wilmette, Illinois. She studied under Paula Vogel at Brown University (A.B., 1997; M.F.A., 2001) and did graduate work at Pembroke College, Oxford.
Ruhl gained widespread recognition for her play The Clean House, a romantic comedy about a physician who cannot convince her depressed Brazilian maid to clean her house. It won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2004. It was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2005.
Her play Eurydice was produced off-Broadway at New York's Second Stage Theatre in June-July 2007. Prior to that it had been staged at Yale Rep (2006),Berkeley Rep (2004), Georgetown University, and Circle X Theatre.[4] [5] Ruhl is also known for her Passion Play cycle that opened at Washington's Arena Stage in 2005, and subsequently was produced by the Goodman Theatre and Yale Rep. The Passon Play is scheduled to make its New York City premiere in Spring 2010 in a production by the Epic Theatre Ensemble in Brooklyn, New York.
Her play Dead Man's Cell Phone premiered in New York City at Playwrights Horizons in 2008 in a production starring Mary-Louise Parker. It had its world premiere at Washington D.C.'s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in 2007.[7][8] Other plays include Orlando, Late: A Cowboy Song and Demeter in the City.
In September 2006, she received a MacArthur Fellowship. The announcement of that award stated: "Sarah Ruhl, 32, playwright, New York City. Playwright creating vivid and adventurous theatrical works that poignantly juxtapose the mundane aspects of daily life with mythic themes of love and war."
In February 2009, her play In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) premiered at Berkeley Rep.[10][11] The play is scheduled to open on Broadway at theLyceum Theatre with previews starting on October 22, 2009 and an official opening in November 2009. This marks Ruhl's Broadway debut.
Director Jodi Schiller is a playwright and a founding member and Artistic Director of Drama Mamas. Schiller has directed the 24-Hour PlayFest for Woman's Will.