Tammy Ryan, Playwright Current Plays Young Audiences Short Plays Publications Bio Contact

Publications

FULL-LENGTH PLAYS

LOST BOY FOUND IN WHOLE FOODS

http://www.dramaticpublishing.com/product_info.php?products_id=3261
3 female, 3 male

"Ryan's play poignantly and powerfully integrates a personal story with a current world issue. When single mother Christine meets Gabriel, one of the "lost boys" from Sudan, in the produce section of a Pittsburgh Whole Foods where he works, the two form a relationship that changes both their lives. The play avoids easy, feel-good answers in exploring the very different ways that Christine and Gabriel think he should deal with the challenges he faces. As Pittsburgh theater critic Christopher Rawson perceptively observes, "the person who is most truly lost amid middle-class comfort is... Christine... [The play charts] the faltering, one-forward, one-back steps she takes to find her own usefulness and meaning."
-- The American Theater Critics Association, 2012 Francesca Primus Prize.

A CONFLUENCE OF DREAMING

http://www.broadwayplaypubl.com/CONFLUENCE OF.htm
2 male, 2 female

"CONFLUENCE is what we'd call a 9/11 play...it's also about marriage, parenting, cybersex and especially dreams... it's engrossing, perceptive and very very funny.... Carol's rebellion is a hoot, involving some very funny sex scenes, remember this is a master class in turning existential despair into comedy. Leave the young children at home."
Christopher Rawson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

DARK PART OF THE FOREST

Broadway Play Publishing, Inc. 2011 BroadwayPlayPubl.com/DARK PART.htm
3 women, 3 men

"Tammy Ryan should have called her new play 'The Dark Part of the Marriage' instead of the DARK PART OF THE FOREST...in the play's potent debut... Joan and Bill's faltering marriage is the main event. What's also intriguing about DARK PART OF THE FOREST is the abundance of fairy tale imagery...Ryan has written no fairy tale, though. She can be grimmer than the Grimm brothers--but just as enigmatically entertaining." Peter Filichia, The Star-Ledger

FBI GIRL

Dramatic Publishing Company, Inc, 2004 www.dramaticpublishing.com
4 female, 4 male

This poignant coming of age story follows young Maura Conlon through her childhood journey in the 1960s and 70s. Growing up in an Irish-Catholic family, mostly held together by commitment to her youngest brother, Joey, born with Down's syndrome, Maura struggles to find her place in the world. She is fascinated by mysteries, a fascination fed by the elusive world of her FBI agent father. Her dream was to follow his path and crack "the code" that made his world so lusciously impenetrable.

BABY'S BLUES

Broadway Play Publishing, Inc, 2006 www.BroadwayPlayPubl.com
4 female, 2 male

Susan is a career woman with a seemingly perfect life, complete with sensitive husband and a brand new bundle of joy on the way. Beginning at the moment a very pregnant Susan goes into labor, the play follows her journey as she becomes a new mother, with a frighteningly inexplicable newborn to care for. Employing both realistic and surrealistic elements, BABY'S BLUES explores one woman's descent into postpartum depression, but also brings into focus the difficult challenge of becoming a mother for the first time, as well as the fine line that sometimes exists between health and madness.

THE MUSIC LESSON

Dramatic Publishing Company, Inc, 2004 www.dramaticpublishingcompany.com
4 women, 2 men

Weaving together the music of Bach, with the memories of the Bosnian War and the universal conflicts between teacher and student, THE MUSIC LESSON tells the story of Irena and her husband Ivan, two musicians who escaped the war in Sarajevo to start a new life in Pittsburgh. While Irena's passion for music and the students she taught helped Irena survive the war, she now stands torn between Maja, the 12 year old prodigy she left behind in Sarajevo and Kat, the bright but angry American teenager who wants to learn but resists her teaching. Shifting elegantly from past to present and resonating with powerful music, this is the tale of two countries, two families and the ways they teach and heal each other.

PIG

Dramatists Play Service, Inc, 1998 www.dramatists.com
5 women, 4 men

CIt is the day before Labor Day, 1990, four months before the Gulf War and the Robinsons are having a barbecue. Jason, the prodigal son, who's been in the Navy since a violent confrontation with his father, is on his way home. Jason's family - his parents Jack and Irene, his sisters Jeanann, Maureen and Peggy, and Aunt Bernice and Uncle George - await his arrival as they drink, fight, joke, sing Girl Scouts songs, threaten each other with playing charades and otherwise stake out their territories . Jason arrives with presents from his family from around the world, and a freshly killed pig in the garbage bag to roast, creating a stir at the party and forcing emotions to rise. After Santos, the next door neighbor, casts doubt as to what's really in the garbage bag, Jason takes his family hostage and forces them at gun point to play a life and death game of charades.