alphabetical author index

How to Defend Yourself

  • Liliana Padilla
  • Full Length Play, Dramatic Comedy, Present Day, Contemporary
  • 2M, 6F
  • ISBN: 9780573710636

Seven college students at a DIY self-defense workshop face the insidious ways rape culture steals one's body and sense of belonging. With sharp humor and brutal honesty, How to Defend Yourself explores what we want, how to ask for it, and the violator and violated inside us all.

  • Full Length Play
  • Dramatic Comedy
  • 105 minutes

  • Time Period: Present Day, Contemporary
  • Target Audience: Adult
  • Set Requirements: Interior Set
  • Cautions: Alcohol, Intense Adult Themes, Strong Language

  • Performance Group:
  • College Theatre / Student, Blackbox / Second Stage /Fringe Groups, Professional Theatre
Seven college students gather for a DIY self-defense workshop after a sorority sister is raped. They learn how to “not be a victim,” how to use their bodies as weapons, how to fend off attackers. The form of self-defense becomes a channel for their rage, trauma, confusion, anxiety and desire – lots of desire. Challenged to determine what they want and how to ask for it, the students must ultimately face the insidious ways rape culture steals one's body and sense of belonging.

REVIEWS:

"Profound, funny and shocking."

 The Daily Beast

"The stunningly lit scene seemed to play in slow motion, peeling back years of learned social behaviors to evoke the both terrifying and exciting possibilities of tenderness, sex, danger and passion."

 The New York Times

"Deliver[s] harrowing subject matter with a surprising amount of humor and levity... the dialogue takes an honest and irreverent tone, perfectly capturing the mood, voice and habits of hardly mature twentysomethings."

 Chicago Sun Times

"Padilla is so incredibly smart. They’ve written a play that doesn’t simply address the campus rape culture crisis solely within the silo of toxic masculinity, but are also looking at the way the culture thrives because it’s been insulated by white privilege. And not just white male privilege, but the ways white women are also complicit and even might be daring to ask the extent to which people of color can be too. It’s a play that asks us to look at how sometimes our trauma can warp our sense of reality, can have us grasping at a false sense of safety, can have us transform from innocent bystander to witness to silent third-party perpetrator, can put us in that place, in that aftermath where ‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t mean anything."

 Louisville Public Media

"To really deal with the tricky question of how organic desire bumps up against a kind of learned self-objectification means that Padilla has to be willing to voice opposition to the standard progressive line that dominates non-profit theater — and this play does... Very few young playwrights can do this so well."

 Chicago Tribune

Premiere Production: How to Defend Yourself premiered at Actors Theatre of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky on March 13, 2019, and was subsequently produced at Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago in January 2020. On February 22, 2023, the play made its off-Broadway premiere at New York Theatre Workshop. Co-directed by Rachel Chavkin, Liliana Padilla and Steph Paul, the production featured Amaya Braganza, Sebastian Delascasas, Jayson Lee, Ariana Mahallati, Teagan Meredith, Gabriela Ortega, Sarah Marie Rodriguez and Talia Ryder.
  • Casting: 2M, 6F
  • Casting Attributes: Role(s) for Latino Actor(s), Role(s) for Black Actor(s), Roles for Children

  • DIANA – 18, Mexican-American, She/Her/Hers. Obsessed with guns. Never afraid to go first. Her tough exterior protects tender insides – she loves confrontation except when she's the one who's made a mistake.
    MOJDEH – 18, Iranian-American, She/Her/Hers. Just got to college and trying on new selves. Desperate to lose her virginity and get into a sorority. She will do anything to be wanted. Observes others to know what’s cool.
    NIKKI – 20, person of color. She/Her/Hers. Wallflower with a vivid inner world. She's quiet and clocks everything. Over the course of the class, she begins to find her strength and her boldness catapults her to danger.
    BRANDI – 21, White, She/Her/Hers. VP of the sorority and valedictorian of everything. She got a black belt in Karate to make sure she never feels vulnerable again. She wants to make everyone safe.
    KARA – 21, person of color, She/Her/Hers. Sisterhood chair of the sorority. Susannah’s best friend. Her humor and cool are so effortless and laser sharp that you just might believe her when she says she doesn’t care.
    ANDY – 21, White, He/Him/His. Varsity athlete and leader in his fraternity. Earnestly eager to end rape culture and unpack the man box. He tries to use the right words and be sensitive to others, he really tries.
    EGGO – 20, person of color, He/Him/His. Can’t wait to not be 20 anymore. He’s pretty confused by consent culture and terrified of rejection. He joined the frat to have friends, they’re ok – but it’s nice to have a group of people think he’s funny.
    SUSANNAH – 6, person of color, she/her/hers, a young child who makes a wish.
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    Seven college students gather for a DIY self-defense workshop after a sorority sister is raped. They learn how to “not be a victim,” how to use their bodies as weapons, how to fend off attackers. The form of self-defense becomes a channel for their rage, trauma, confusion, anxiety and desire – lots of desire. Challenged to determine what they want and how to ask for it, the students must ultimately face the insidious ways rape culture steals one's body and sense of belonging.

    $24.95