Sarah Ruhl

Sarah Ruhl (born January 24, 1974) is an American playwright, poet, professor, and essayist.

When Ruhl was twenty, in August 1994, her father died of cancer after fighting the disease for two years, an event that would have a profound impact on her and her art.

Ruhl had intended to become a poet, but after she studied under Paula Vogel at Brown University, she was persuaded to switch to playwriting.

Her first play was The Dog Play, written in 1995 for one of Vogel's classes.

She graduated from Brown University with a Bachelor of Arts in English (1997), with her undergraduate work including a year spent at Pembroke College in Oxford.

Orlando, an adaptation of the novel by Virginia Woolf, was commissioned by the Piven Theatre Workshop and premiered in Evanston, Illinois in May 1998 featuring Justine Scarpa as Orlando.

She worked a variety of jobs for the next two years, including teaching arts education in public schools, before returning to Brown for her Master of Fine Arts in Playwriting (2001).

Sarah Ruhl currently teaches at David Geffen School of Drama and lives in Brooklyn with her family.

The Lady with the Lap Dog, and Anna Around the Neck (adapted from Anton Chekhov) were commissioned and produced by the Piven Theatre Workshop in 2001.

The two plays are Ruhl's stage adaptions of Anton Chekov short stories.

Among her most popular plays are Eurydice (2003), The Clean House (2004), and In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play) (2009).

She has been the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for a distinguished American playwright in mid-career.

Two of her plays have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and she received a nomination for Tony Award for Best Play.

Director Joyce Piven later helmed the show again in March 2003 at The Actors' Gang, Hollywood, California, with Polly Noonan taking on the title role.

Late: A Cowboy Song was produced by Clubbed Thumb (New York City) in 2003.

The Cornerstone Theater Company (Los Angeles) commissioned Ruhl for a play about young people living in Los Angeles.

Cornerstone presented the play, Demeter in the City at REDCAT in June 2006.

The play is based on the myth of Demeter and Persephone.

The play was produced Off-Broadway by the Classic Stage Company in 2010.

The Oldest Boy premiered in November 2014 at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater.

The play was directed by Rebecca Taichman and starred Celia Keenan-Bolger and James Yaegashi.

On the occasion of a 2015 production at Piven of her Melancholy Play, Ruhl credited the institution with teaching her about the role of language and narration in theater.

Ruhl attended Interlochen Arts Camp for several summers in her youth.

In 2015, Orlando premiered for the Sydney Theatre Company at the Sydney Opera House with actress Jacqueline McKenzie playing the lead.

The play was presented by the graduate acting class at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University in November 2015.

Her play Scenes from Court Life, or The Whipping Boy and His Prince premiered at Yale Repertory Theatre on October 1, 2016 in previews, officially on October 6, and ran to October 22, 2016.

The play, directed by Mark Wing-Davey, involves "privilege and politics in both 17th century Britain and current day America."

Her play How to Transcend a Happy Marriage premiered Off-Broadway at Lincoln Center's Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater on February 23, 2017 in previews, officially on March 20, 2017, directed by Rebecca Taichman.

The cast featured Lena Hall, Marisa Tomei, Brian Hutchison, David McElwee, Naian González Norvind, Omar Metwally, Austin Smith, and Robin Weigert.

In 2018, Letters from Max: A Book of Friendship, co-authored by Max Ritvo, was published by Milkweed Editions.

Her most recent play, Becky Nurse of Salem (2019) premiered at Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

Her memoir Smile was listed as one of Time magazine's 100 Must-Read Books of 2021.

She currently serves on the faculty of the Yale School of Drama.

Ruhl was born in Wilmette, Illinois.

Her mother, Kathleen Ruhl, studied theater at Smith College and earned a Ph.D. in Language, Literacy, and Rhetoric from the University of Illinois and became an English teacher, as well as an actress and a theatre director.

Her father, Patrick Ruhl, became a marketer of toys, with an appreciation for literature and music.

Her older sister, Kate, is a psychiatrist.

Beginning in the fourth grade, Ruhl received dramatic training at the Piven Theatre Workshop, in Evanston, Illinois.

In 2020, she adapted her play Eurydice into the libretto for Matthew Aucoin's opera of the same name.

Eurydice was nominated for Best Opera Recording at the 2023 Grammy Awards.