Greater Clements and Other Plays
In his work, Samuel D. Hunter has a singular gift for exploring the decline of small-town America with an empathetic yet incisive eye. His plays take place in corners of the country that are receding from the forefront of contemporary American life, focusing on those who get left behind, isolated and disillusioned with the false promise of the American dream. This new collection contains three striking, deeply-felt plays, all set in Hunter's home state of Idaho. In Greater Clements, the longtime residents of a dying Idaho mining town have voted to unincorporate in order to retaliate against the wealthy out-of-staters who are buying up property. In doing so, they also speed the town's decline, forcing them to reckon with their desire to hold onto their history while struggling to find a path forward. In Lewiston, an aging descendant of Meriwether Lewis sells off her family’s land as she becomes increasingly convinced that her family’s past is a curse. But when an unexpected visitor enters the picture, she is left to consider whether any good remains in the world. In Clarkston, a young descendant of William Clark has made the journey out west from his home in Connecticut, anxious to find meaning in his own history. Faced with the reality of the diminished towns that used to make up America’s shining frontier, his faith in his future and the future of the country itself begins to falter.
Samuel D. Hunter'splays include The Whale (Drama Desk Award, Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, GLAAD Media Award, Drama League and Outer Critics Circle nominations for Best Play), A Bright New Boise (Obie Award, Drama Desk nomination for Best Play), The Few, A Great Wilderness, Rest, Pocatello, The Healing, The Harvest, Lewiston, Clarkston, and most recently, Greater Clements. He is the recipient of a 2014 MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship, a 2012 Whiting Writers Award, the 2013 Otis Guernsey New Voices Award, the 2011 Sky Cooper Prize, the 2008 PONY/Lark Fellowship, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Idaho. His plays have been produced in New York at Playwrights Horizons, LCT3, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Clubbed Thumb and Page 73, and around the country at such theaters as Seattle Rep, South Coast Rep, Victory Gardens, Williamstown Theater Festival, The Old Globe, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Denver Center Theatre Company, the Dallas Theater Center, Long Wharf Theatre, and elsewhere. His work has been developed at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, the Ojai Playwrights Conference, Seven Devils, and PlayPenn. He is a member of New Dramatists, an Ensemble Playwright at Victory Gardens, a member of Partial Comfort Productions, and was a 2013 Resident Playwright at Arena Stage. A native of northern Idaho, Sam lives in NYC. He holds degrees in playwriting from NYU, The Iowa Playwrights Workshop, and Juilliard.
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