Clare Barron

Clare Barron Synopsis

Published for the first time in a single collection, Clare Barron: Plays One brings together four works by one of the most acclaimed young playwrights in America today. Plays One includes You Got Older, Dance Nation, I'll Never Love Again, and Dirty Crusty, Barron's latest play. Delving into adolescence and what it to be a young woman today, this collection presents one of the most distinctive voices in theatre right now.

You Got Older Mae returns home to help take care of Dad and - maybe (a little) - herself. You Got Older is a tender and darkly comic new play about family, illness, and cowboys - and how to remain standing when everything you know comes crashing down around you. Dance Nation Somewhere in America, a revolution is coming.

An army of competitive dancers is ready to take over the world, one routine at a time. With a pre-teen battle for power and perfection raging on and off stage, Dance Nation is a ferocious exploration of youth, ambition and self-discovery. Dirty Crusty Jeanine is determined to improve her life.

With sex. With dance. With new hobbies, like horticulture.

But self-improvement is hard. Reclaiming your dreams is hard. And personal hygiene is really, really hard.

I'll Never Love Again Created from Barron's actual teenage diary, we track the emotional ups-and-downs of "Clare" as she goes through her very first relationship. It's a chance to spend some time in a real-life teenage brain and with real-life teenage artifacts (drawings from Clare's journals, the actual purple iridescent choir robes from her high school, her baby teeth...) Do you remember your first cup of coffee? Or how intense it was the first time you took your pants off with someone?

Or all the things you promised yourself before you got distracted by the Adult World?