alphabetical author index

Bright New Boise, A

  • Samuel D. Hunter
  • Full Length Play, Dark Comedy, Present Day, Contemporary
  • 3M, 2F
  • ISBN: 9780573602450

In the bleak, corporate break room of a craft store in Idaho, someone is summoning the rapture.

  • Full Length Play
  • Dark Comedy
  • 120 minutes

  • Time Period: Present Day, Contemporary
  • Target Audience: Adult
  • Set Requirements: Unit Set/Multiple Settings
  • Cautions: Strong Language

  • Performance Group:
  • Shoestring Budget, College Theatre / Student, Professional Theatre, Blackbox / Second Stage /Fringe Groups

  • Accolades:
  • NOMINEE - 2011 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play, WINNER - 2011 Obie Award for Playwriting
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.

REVIEWS:

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
Premiere Production: 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.

  • Casting: 3M, 2F

  • WILL - Late thirties, male.
    PAULINE - Late thirties to early forties, female.
    ANNA - Late twenties to early thirties, female.
    LEROY - Early to mid twenties, male.
    ALEX - 17, male.
    TWO MALE VOICES ON HOBBY LOBBY TV
  • Name Price
    Bright New Boise, A Script Order Now

    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.

    $24.95