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FAMILY PLANNING [more info continued]

Cast
OLIVIA - late 30’s, Hamish’s wife, baby crazy
HAMISH - late 30’s, Olivia’s husband, mid-life crisis
GRETA - 60’s, Hamish’s mother, velvet knife
ROSEN - late 30’s, hometown pal, arrested development
JILLY - early 20’s, Rosen’s chick, fertile and fun

About The Play
Five years ago, I donated an egg to my sister. I shot myself full of hormones every night and a month later my eleven eggs were “harvested”. I felt like an alien. A really emotional alien.  The good news is she got pregnant and had a baby who is now a precocious four year old.  But I was struck with an odd sensation: it felt like just a second ago I was getting The Pill at Planned Parenthood, surrounded by teenagers ending unwanted pregnancies. Then I was in the waiting room at the Reproductive Clinic—surrounded by women sick with want and disappointment. We have indeed come a long way.  But it sucks when biology lags behind. This play was born in that waiting room. To give voice to the primal desire of those waiting women.

What Others are Saying
“Hooray! I think it's high time someone wrote about that issue.   It's wicked and very funny.” Sarah Ruhl, Playwright

“The dialogue is fabulous—funny and occasionally mean—and the characters are wonderfully flawed and vulnerable.” Tanya Palmer, Goodman Theatre

“I found it startling in its bare honesty.  I found who and what these people revealed themselves to be really shocking.” Meredith McDonough, Director

“I find the ending in particular so beautiful, and all the more so because that final gesture is so small.  I love that it takes the entire hour and a half journey of the play to arrive at something so small as letting a partner care for a little bit of hurt.” Josh Hecht, Director

 


OLIVIA:
And you want to hear how cruel hope is?  I sit in the waiting room with a bunch of other depressed women staring at this wall.  With pictures of perfect little babies that other people had.  Which is the last thing in the world we need to see.  But you can’t help but stare at them.  They’re so fucking cute.  And you feel this want like a tidal wave.  It’s so strong, you can smell those little babies. 
And then one of the lucky ones comes out.  One of the pregnant ones.  Her hand on her tummy.  Smiling. 
And I have this urge--I swear I do--to rush her. 
To throw my arms around her neck. 
To dig my fingers into her flesh and crush with all my strength. 
To feel her life shudder out of her body. 
Until she’s twitching for air, her eyes are bulging, and her head flops forward--dead. 
And then I would cut her open. 
But carefully, very carefully. 
Because I don’t want to hurt the baby. 
It’s a perfect little boy. 
And I would do anything to feel this tiny heartbeat next to mine.