Big, Scary Animals
Price range: $0.00 through $15.95
Description
An older white couple from the country moves to the city to be closer to their granddaughter and unknowingly settles in the gay neighborhood. What begins as polite dinner conversation with their gay, multi-ethnic neighbors careens out of control. A hilarious collision of race, sex, guns, and sports, BIG, SCARY ANIMALS examines shifting generational beliefs and just how hard it is to raise a child regardless of who you are and where you live.
Production Info
Full Length Dark Comedy (about 90 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
Press Quotes
“BIG, SCARY ANIMALS sets its sights on the idea that we don’t know how to talk about our differences, tackling it with intelligence and humor. Lyle makes his point that words do matter and we should pay more attention to them; but he also effectively satirizes how overly sensitive we can be … it provides something sorely needed: Laughter. Lots of it. As he’s proven time and time again, Lyle has impeccable timing with a punchline or comic situation.” —Mark Lowry, TheatreJones
“Lyle toys with your expectations and loyalties and forces the audience to see The Other in a sympathetic (or critical) light, and does so through one of the densest string of laugh-out-loud comedies you’ll ever see … this smart, 85-minute comedy created a sense of community that is, at its heart, the goal of all theater.” —Arnold Wayne Jones, Dallas Voice
“The show has a handful of serious moments, but the most thoughtful among these is the concept that no matter how different people think they are, from food to decorating to political and religious opinions, there is common ground and it may be found in the place where we laugh together.” —Nancy Churnin, Dallas Morning News
“… genuinely, undeniably, wonderfully funny … character-based, infinitely empathetic comedy.” —Christopher Soden, Sharp Critic
“Brilliant comedy … Playwright Matt Lyle understands his characters thoroughly, whether he’s presenting an angry Black intellectual, a peace-loving queen with a not-so-peaceful wit that can cut deep, or committed Christians who sincerely try to love the sinner for whom their contempt is hardly hidden. Lyle’s characters have teeth and claws, every one of ’em, but they are not caricatures. They are scary, they can hurt, but they also care and they try to be good. They really do … What distinguishes this work is an astonishingly fearless, wicked wit. [Lyle] dares to take his characters down dark alleys of mind and soul that few writers are willing to explore, and he makes us laugh all the way into the dark. These people are horrible, and at the same time their behavior is human as it is hideous, and we can understand them. This is a trick that is difficult to pull off, and when I encounter it, I find myself thinking of masters of absurdist comedy like Edward Albee or Joe Orton. I mean to say that Matt Lyle is playing in the big leagues, and he swings for the fence … The culmination occurs with two astounding, heartfelt, virtuoso monologues delivered by Rhonda and Donald, which land with enough force to make the bones rattle. What they reveal is both screamingly funny, and horrifyingly true. This is theatre on the high wire … You will not forget BIG, SCARY ANIMALS.” —Charlsie-Kern Kruger, theatrestorm.com
Author
Matt LyleOriginally from East Texas, Matt Lyle is a writer, actor, and director living in Dallas, Texas. Matt's plays have been produced across the U.S. His plays THE BOXER, HELLO HUMAN FEMALE, BARBECUE APOCALYPSE and BIG SCARY ANIMALS all garnered DFW Theater Critics Forum Awards for "Outstanding New Play" and BARBECUE APOCALYPSE was nominated for an American Theatre Critics Association Steinberg New Play Award. Matt has been commissioned by Theatre Three, Dallas Theater Center and Audacity Theatre Lab. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild and the Playwrights' Center and was honored as the 2018 Distinguished Alum of the Stephen F. Austin State University School of Theatre.
Book Information
| Publisher | BPPI |
|---|---|
| Publication Date | 5/17/2018 |
| Pages | 78 |
| ISBN | 9780881457780 |
Special Notes
by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
www.broadwayplaypublishing.com
