Overview
At a church-sponsored halfway house in Western North Carolina, the arrival of a charismatic high-school English teacher shakes up the household dynamic, leading to new friendships, routines, and intrigues. As romantic rivalries and racial tensions escalate, the house’s residents and two founders—a taciturn, broad-minded minister and an idealistic social worker—must confront their own failings and the limits of their mission.
Casting & Production
Casting
ALISON — Female, 30s-40s, white or passes for white
GRACE — Female, 40s-50s, person of color
CHERIE (“shuh-REE”) — Female, 30s-40s, African-American
WADE — Male, 30s, biracial
HERN — Male, 40s-50s, white or passes for white
COLE — Male, 30s-40s, white or passes for white
Setting
Time
Recently
Place
Rural Western North Carolina, near Asheville.
Setting
Scenes 1-6: the living room of a small mountain house, with exits leading to an office, a kitchen, a hallway, and a partially visible porch.
Scene 7: a classroom
Reviews
“Abby Rosebrock’s play says something worth listening to. Her subject is healing, the queasy, fragile calm that follows the storm of addiction and abuse; she’s interested in the ways in which damaged people try—or don’t—to fix themselves by untangling the harm that they’ve done from the harm that has been done to them. Who is really at fault for our failures?”
—Alexandra Schwartz, The New Yorker
“Rosebrock’s play nimbly balances on a knife edge between weird, excitingly uncomfortable comedy and deep, hideous pain. BLUE RIDGE deals courageously in hard, sad human truths, the kind of metastasized stuff that might take a lifetime to heal.”
—Sarah Holdren, New York Magazine
“BLUE RIDGE is a devastating examination of how even smart, strong women can be deformed by a society that raises them to please—and how men who don’t fit in can be victims, too. Through various modes, from biting dark humor to emotional outbursts and quiet confessions, Rosebrock beautifully fleshes out all the characters, who come from diverse ethnic, economic and spiritual backgrounds.”
—Raven Snook, Time Out New York
Media
