If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka
- Full Length Play, Dramatic Comedy, Contemporary, New Millennium/21st Century
- 2M, 5F, 1M or F
- ISBN: 9780573709111
In a mashup of West African folklore and contemporary American culture, Tori Sampson's provocative, hilarious new play follows four teenage girls as they grapple with societal definitions of beauty.
Description
- Full Length Play
- Dramatic Comedy
- 105 minutes
- Time Period: Contemporary, New Millennium/21st Century
- Target Audience: Teen (Age 14 - 18), Adult
- Performance Group:
- College Theatre / Student, Blackbox / Second Stage /Fringe Groups, Professional Theatre
Tori Sampson's hilariously provocative play doesn’t ask the question "How much is beauty worth?" but rather, "Why are so many willing to pay its price?"
REVIEWS:
"Delicious! A contemporary fable about the black female body and its discontents... an auspicious professional playwriting debut."
The New York Times
"One of the pleasures of If Pretty Hurts is that it exists largely outside the white gaze. As part of the recent flowering on New York stages of plays that blur the boundaries of Africa and America... it honors its characters and its audience enough to assume the value of black lives that are only distantly mediated by Eurocentric expectations."
The New York Times
"Riffing on a Nigerian folktale... Sampson’s got her finger on the sharp point of a splinter that goes excruciatingly deep."
Vulture
"Charming... [a] vibrant 90-minute spin on the time-honored 'black is beautiful' maxim... Sampson imagines a tale that also draws on elements echoed from Cinderella treatments."
New York Stage Review
"Exhilarating... Sampson’s script plays like it’s sledding on a steep hill: You can feel the speed, the writer’s whizzing wit, the swift adjustments in tone and direction. The mixture of folklore-speak and hilarious up-to-the-minute banter is intoxicating, but it’s also a clever comic strategy to smuggle the girls’ pain past our watchful minds."
Time Out New York
Characters
- Casting: 2M, 5F, 1M or F
- Casting Attributes: Role(s) for Black Actor(s)
- Casting Notes: Grant audiences the gift of basking in beauty beyond Eurocentric measurements. Akim should not have a lighter skin tone than Massassi. Nobody needs to be tall, skinny, have straight teeth, clear skin, long hair, etc. BE beauty in all your glory
AKIM – Beautiful girl. Seventeen years life.
MASSASSI – Beautiful girl. Seventeen years life.
ADAMA – Beautiful girl. Seventeen years life.
KAYA – Beautiful girl. Seventeen years life.
KASIM – Confident boy. Seventeen years life.
MA – Refined woman. Lived enough to know.
DAD – Protective man. Lived enough to know.
MIMES – Southern Baptist style mimes embody song to offer transcendence to those who believe. A reflection of what Yahweh sees in us all. (To be inhabited by Dwellers).
Available Material
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Combining West African folklore and contemporary American culture, If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must be a Muhfucka follows four teenage girls as they grapple with societal definitions of beauty. In the fictional setting of Affreakah-Amirrorkah, the four young women – Kaya, Massassi, Adama and Akim – are given an opportunity to live in a society where their individual beauty can reign supreme. But this opportunity comes at a dangerous cost. |
$24.95 |
