Rebecca Gilman
Author of Boy Gets Girl: A Play
Works by Rebecca Gilman
Nora 1 copy
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Gilman, Rebecca
- Birthdate
- 1964
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Birmingham-Southern College
University of Iowa (MFA ∙ Iowa Playwrights Workshop)
Middlebury College - Organizations
- Dramatists Guild of America
- Awards and honors
- Harper Lee Award (2008)
- Short biography
- A native of Alabama, Gilman is a resident playwright at the Chicago Dramatists. Rebecca Gilman’s plays include The Sweetest Swing in Baseball, The Glory of Living, and the Goodman Theatre world premieres of Spinning Into Butter, Boy Gets Girl, and Blue Surge. Her plays have also been produced at the Lincoln Center Theatre in New York, Royal Court Theatre in London, the Public Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, Manhattan Class Company, as well as other theaters around the country and abroad. She received her M.F.A. in playwriting from the University of Iowa in 1991. Chicago Tribune Arts Critic Chris Jones has said of Gilman that “she writes plays with such intriguing plots that the audience finds itself hungry for what is going to happen next-and once she has the viewer under that narrative spell, she does not shirk from exposing complex themes with a strongly feminist sensibility, dispensed with just the right quirky touch of nouveau Southern gothic.”
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Trussville, Alabama, USA
- Places of residence
- Chicago, Illinois, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- USA
Members
Reviews
This is Gilman's best work that I've encountered. If you read only one play this year, it might as well be this.
Curt is the small town cop; Beth is the woman he plans to marry; Sandy is the girl he tries to save.
Channeling the torn-between-two-worlds power of works like Graham
Greene's The Heart of the Matter, Gilman's characters all walk a fine line between hope and hopelessness. They are at times players within and victims to a system and country that gives the poor no reason to believe in show more themselves.
I think Blue Surge works best as a commentary on the power of (a lack of) education to hold back those in search of "the American Dream," as well as an explorations of the impossibility of sincere dialogue between the classes. Like all finely wrought tragedies, it is gripping from start to finish. show less
Curt is the small town cop; Beth is the woman he plans to marry; Sandy is the girl he tries to save.
Channeling the torn-between-two-worlds power of works like Graham
Greene's The Heart of the Matter, Gilman's characters all walk a fine line between hope and hopelessness. They are at times players within and victims to a system and country that gives the poor no reason to believe in show more themselves.
I think Blue Surge works best as a commentary on the power of (a lack of) education to hold back those in search of "the American Dream," as well as an explorations of the impossibility of sincere dialogue between the classes. Like all finely wrought tragedies, it is gripping from start to finish. show less
I saw the production in London in 2004, and in many ways the plot has become more relevant in the decades since: an artist in the grips of an emotional crisis fakes a
more severe mental health crisis so that her insurance will continue to pay for treatment. Maybe the "faking" part would get too much negative blowback, but the core of the story seems to remain vibrant for me: the dangers of isolation, our need for community and emotional outlets, the damage done when personal success is only show more measured through professional success. show less
more severe mental health crisis so that her insurance will continue to pay for treatment. Maybe the "faking" part would get too much negative blowback, but the core of the story seems to remain vibrant for me: the dangers of isolation, our need for community and emotional outlets, the damage done when personal success is only show more measured through professional success. show less
A whirlwind of a play about a widowed woman and a young man newly released from prison. The audio production is just beautiful, performed with a full cast. It moves quickly through topics of depression, nature preservation, and grief but all the characters are fully realized. One of the best plays I've read in recent years.
The Real Not-So-Likeable Mabel Loomis Todd
Review of the Audible Original audio production (April 2020) of the original stage play (Oct. 2019)
Mabel Loomis Todd (1856-1932) became the notorious first posthumous editor of [author:Emily Dickinson|7440] (1830-1886) when she gained access to the manuscripts through her lover who was Dickinson's brother. The resulting first volume Poems by Emily Dickinson (1890) was followed by others which were all subjected to Todd's heavy handed corrections and show more updating.
Rebecca Gilman's stage play A Woman of the World imagines Todd giving her standard "The Real Emily Dickinson" talk to an audience on Hog Island, Maine in 1931. During the course of the evening we actually learn very little about Emily Dickinson, but instead are introduced to "The Real Mabel Loomis Todd" who initially is self-satisfied and self-aggrandizing about her life and career but gradually begins to reveal more and more of the actual truth about herself and her relationship to Emily Dickinson.
The performance by Kathleen Chalfant, who premiered the play on stage in Oct. - Nov. 2019 is excellent in this studio audio production. It is wonderful as well that Chalfant's age is very close to what Todd's would have been in 1931 i.e. some people do actually write terrific parts for senior actors.
A Woman of the World is one of the Audible Originals made freely available to members for the month of April 2020. It is available to everyone for a standard price.
See a photo of Kathleen Chalfant as Mabel Loomis Todd at https://www.broadwayworld.com/ezoimgfmt/cloudimages.broadwayworld.com/upload13/1...
Photo Credit: Carol Rosegg, sourced from Broadway World. show less
Review of the Audible Original audio production (April 2020) of the original stage play (Oct. 2019)
Mabel Loomis Todd (1856-1932) became the notorious first posthumous editor of [author:Emily Dickinson|7440] (1830-1886) when she gained access to the manuscripts through her lover who was Dickinson's brother. The resulting first volume Poems by Emily Dickinson (1890) was followed by others which were all subjected to Todd's heavy handed corrections and show more updating.
Rebecca Gilman's stage play A Woman of the World imagines Todd giving her standard "The Real Emily Dickinson" talk to an audience on Hog Island, Maine in 1931. During the course of the evening we actually learn very little about Emily Dickinson, but instead are introduced to "The Real Mabel Loomis Todd" who initially is self-satisfied and self-aggrandizing about her life and career but gradually begins to reveal more and more of the actual truth about herself and her relationship to Emily Dickinson.
The performance by Kathleen Chalfant, who premiered the play on stage in Oct. - Nov. 2019 is excellent in this studio audio production. It is wonderful as well that Chalfant's age is very close to what Todd's would have been in 1931 i.e. some people do actually write terrific parts for senior actors.
A Woman of the World is one of the Audible Originals made freely available to members for the month of April 2020. It is available to everyone for a standard price.
See a photo of Kathleen Chalfant as Mabel Loomis Todd at https://www.broadwayworld.com/ezoimgfmt/cloudimages.broadwayworld.com/upload13/1...
Photo Credit: Carol Rosegg, sourced from Broadway World. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 14
- Members
- 500
- Popularity
- #49,492
- Rating
- 3.5
- Reviews
- 17
- ISBNs
- 28