Full Length Play
Dark Comedy
120 minutes (2 hours)
Time Period - Present Day
Settings Of Play - A windowless breakroom of a Hobby Lobby in Boise, Idaho; the parking lot of the Hobby Lobby.
FEATURES / CONTAINS
Interior Set, Unit Set/Multiple Settings, Bare Stage/Simple Set
Contemporary Costumes / Street Clothes
CAUTIONS
Strong Language, No Special Cautions
THEMES
Adolescence, Christianity, Parenting/Family, Religion
PERFORMANCE GROUP
College Theatre / Student, Professional Theatre, Shoestring Budget, Blackbox / Second Stage /Fringe Groups
RECOGNITION / AWARDS
Obie, From Off-Broadway
Winner! 2011 Obie Award for Playwriting
Nominated for the 2011 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play
Samuel D. Hunter's A Bright New Boise is a earnest comedy about the meager profits of modern faith.In the bleak, corporate break room of a craft store in Idaho, someone is summoning The Rapture. Will, who has fled his rural hometown after a scandal at his Evangelical church, comes to the Hobby Lobby, not only for employment, but also to rekindle a relationship with Alex, his brooding teenage son, whom he gave up for adoption several years ago. Alex works there along with Leroy, his adopted brother and protector, and Anna, a hapless young woman who reads bland fiction but hopes for dramatic endings. As their manager, foul-mouthed Pauline, tries ceaselessly to find order (and profit) in the chaos of small business, these lost souls of the Hobby Lobby confront an unyielding world through the beige-tinted impossibility of modern faith.
"Nothing is pretty about A Bright New Boise, a play that marches in the footsteps of Sam Shepard's acid comedies, set in the weird American West...Hunter has such highly sensitive antennae for the look and rhythm of mundane places that A Bright New Boise develops an authentic texture, separate from other pieces in its genre." - The Washington Post "This clear-eyed comedy will lift your heart." —Time Out New York"Samuel D. Hunter has offered us a humorous and touching exploration of faith and family" – NYTheatre.com"Samuel D. Hunter has effectively rendered himself a playwright to watch with A Bright New Boise...a quietly affecting drama that delves into the always thorny issues of faith, forgiveness, and second chances with great eloquence and compassion." -TheatreMania
Commissioned and first produced by Partial Comfort Productions at the Wild Project in New York City, September 2010. Directed by Davis McCallum.
Second production at Woolly Mammoth Theater Company in October 2011. Directed by John Vreeke.
