Friends with Guns
Description
You think you know your friends, your neighbors, your spouse, but what happens when you suddenly find out they have a garage full of guns? This new dark comedy explores the complicated issue of gun proliferation when two young liberal couples are forced to confront their assumptions about who should own a gun and why. The time of easy answers regarding this issue is long gone. In the wake of current events, we are all forced to reexamine our strongly held beliefs about gun ownership. FRIENDS WITH GUNS explores the question of what we can compartmentalize … and what we can't. It examines what happens when guns enter the conversation. It pulls the curtain back on liberals with guns. It asks what happens when suddenly one person in a marriage does a 180 on the gun issue. And it does all of this through a female lens.
Production Info
Full Length Dark Comedy (about 120 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
Press Quotes
“Many are likely to misconstrue Stephanie Alison Walker's new play FRIENDS WITH GUNS as a forceful defense of gun ownership. They couldn't be more wrong. Second Amendment issues are peripheral to FRIENDS WITH GUNS … Walker sounds a warning against the dangers of unbridled fanaticism, whether liberal or conservative in nature. At its heart, the play is most cogently and pressingly about female empowerment, that most unsettling of worldwide political forces. From the Middle East to the American heartland, fundamentalists decry feminism as anti-Scriptural, anti-male and devastating to the status quo. Walker masterfully addresses that trend, inverting audience expectations with devastating skill. Shannon, a struggling real estate agent, is the neurotically anxious mother of two young boys. Her husband, Josh, by contrast is an apparently easy-going guy whose relationship with Shannon hasn't been ruffled by dissension. But when Shannon meets laid-back mom, Leah, at the park, Shannon believes she has finally found her tribe. That feeling seems confirmed when she and Josh join Leah and her husband, Danny, for dinner. The politically liberal foursome appear to be natural soulmates. However, when Josh learns that Danny and Leah keep a small cache of guns locked in their garage, he's beyond outraged — unable to continue a friendship with 'gun people,' no matter how congenial. And when Josh later learns that his wife has been joining Leah on secret visits to a gun range — a practice that has allowed Shannon to lay aside her fears and embrace life as never before — he becomes progressively unhinged … Walker's script presents its fair share of surprises … FRIENDS WITH GUNS is a subtle, savage feminist parable — a cautionary tale of the peril that may await women who dare to venture outside their accepted roles. The terror here is a monster who's so innocuous, appealing and just plain likable — until he's not.” —F Kathleen Foley, Los Angeles Times
Author
Stephanie Alison WalkerStephanie Alison Walker is an internationally-produced, award-winning playwright whose work is known for the personalization of the political, humor in darkness and the exploration of the resilience of women. Her play about the 2018 housing crisis AMERICAN HOME was the inaugural winner of American Blues Theatre's Blue Ink Award, her play about the mothers of the disappeared in Argentina, THE MADRES, was the 2019 Winner of the prestigious Francesca Primus Prize, winner of the Ashland New Plays Festival, the Generations Prize and semi-finalist for the CTG/ Humanitas Prize for playwriting, her follow-up play THE ABUELAS, winner of the Ashland New Plays Festival, premiered at Teatro Vista and was a Chicago Tribune Critic's pick. THE ART OF DISAPPEARING was a finalist for the Primus Prize and enjoyed critical praise for the world premiere in Chicago by 16th Street Theater in 2015. Her play FRIENDS WITH GUNS that tackles liberals and guns, was an O'Neill Finalist, an L.A. Times Critics Choice, called a "savage feminist parable" by the Times. Her latest play — SOPHIA HAYDEN DESERVES BETTER — tells the story of Sophia Hayden, the architect of the Woman's Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. She has had the honor to work with wonderful theatres across the U.S. including Teatro Vista, New York Theatre Workshop, Antaeus Theatre Company, 16th Street Theatre, The Road Theater, Moving Arts, Local Theater Company, Skylight Theatre, Moxie Theatre, American Blues Theatre and many more. Her work has been produced across the U.S. and abroad in Mexico, India, Australia and South Africa. Her short plays have been anthologized by Smith & Kraus. In addition to writing plays, she is currently adapting FRIENDS WITH GUNS and THE ABUELAS as features while raising two spirited boys and selling real estate in the suburbs of Chicago. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Antaeus Playwrights Lab and Honor Roll! — an advocacy and action group of women+ playwrights over forty whose aim is to significantly increase inclusion and representation on stage and in the theatrical canon.
Book Information
| Publisher | BPPI |
|---|---|
| Publication Date | 11/15/2022 |
| Pages | 100 |
| ISBN | 9780881459586 |
Special Notes
by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
www.broadwayplaypublishing.com
