Baby’s Blues
Play Description
Susan is a career woman with a seemingly perfect life, complete with sensitive husband and a brand new bundle of joy on the way. Beginning at the moment a very pregnant Susan goes into labor, the play follows her journey as she becomes a new mother, with a frighteningly inexplicable newborn to care for. Employing both realistic and surrealistic elements, BABY’S BLUES explores one woman’s descent into postpartum depression, but also brings into focus the difficult challenge of becoming a mother for the first time, as well as the fine line that sometimes exists between health and madness.
Production Info
Cast: 7 total (5 female, 2 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
- Reviews
- About the Author(s)
- About the Book
- Special Notes
- Productions
Press Quotes
“BABY’S BLUES makes a strong impact through powerful dialogue … It takes an emotional dilemma and winds it tighter and tighter and tighter to a wrenching peak, leaving us vibrating with the final impact … BABY’S BLUES has undoubted immediacy.” —Christopher Rawson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“Tammy Ryan’s fiercely emotional and darkly disquieting play takes a frank and sympathetic look at one mother’s descent into serious psychosis brought on by the birth of her first child. Ryan works overtime to keep the story real yet understandable. It’s a tensely orchestrated hundred minute journey unrelieved by intermission, yet there are moments of humor and irony.” —Alice T Carter, Tribune Review
Author(s)
Tammy RyanTAMMY RYAN is a playwright and librettist whose work has been performed across the United States and internationally. She was awarded the Francesca Primus Prize by the American Theater Critic’s Association for her play LOST BOY FOUND IN WHOLE FOODS (Premiere Stages/Playwrights Theater of New Jersey.). Other plays include SOLDIER'S HEART, DARK PART OF THE FOREST (Premiere Stages) A CONFLUENCE OF DREAMING, BABY'S BLUES, FBI GIRL (Pittsburgh Playhouse), and THE MUSIC LESSON (Florida Stage/2001 Carbonell Award Best Production/2004 AATE Distinguished New Play Award). In addition, her play, TAR BEACH (Luna Stage), a finalist for the Terrance McNally Playwriting Award and a Jane Chambers Award honoree was included on “The List” of the most outstanding plays by women playwrights in 2014 compiled by the Kilroys. Ryan has held fellowships at Virginia Center of the Creative Arts, Hambidge Center, and the Sewanee Writers Conference. Her work has been featured in the National New Play Network’s National Showcase of Plays and has been read and developed at the New Harmony Project, Premiere Stages Play Festival, The Ignite Festival, The Lark and elsewhere.
Special Notes
If original stage producers credits appear in bold below, all licensees are required to include them in the following form on the title page in all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play and in all advertising in which the full cast appears in size of type not less than ten percent (10%) of the size of the title of the Play:
Originally produced by The Rep, Pittsburgh
In addition, the following must appear within all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play:
by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
www.broadwayplaypub.com
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