THE GUYS, by Anne Nelson

This evening I attended a student’s production in which he portrayed a fire chief who lost a considerable amount of his firefighters during 9/11.

Powerful.

This play was off my radar and I am so glad it is now in my line of sight and that I am learning about the playwright, Anne Nelson.

About the playwright, Anne Nelson, from Google books:

Anne Nelson is an award-winning author and playwright. She is the author of Codename Suzette; Red Orchestra: The Story of the Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends Who Resisted Hitler; Murder Under Two Flags: The US, Puerto Rico, and the Cerro Maravilla Cover-up; and The Guys: A Play. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Harper’s, BBC, CBC, NPR, and PBS. Nelson is a graduate of Yale University and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She teaches at the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs in New York City.

Robin Flynn’s THE NEW YORK TIMES write-up on the playwright, Anne Nelson.

About THE GUYS:  (from Wikipedia)

THE GUYS is a play by Anne Nelson about the aftereffects of the collapse of the World Trade Center. In the play, Joan, an editor, helps Nick, an FDNY captain, prepare the eulogies for an unprecedented number of firefighters who died under his command that day.^[1] The play debuted off-Broadway at The Flea Theater on December 4, 2001, directed by Jim Simpson and starring Sigourney Weaver and Bill Murray.

Since 2001, The Guys has been presented in 48 US states and in the Czech Republic, Argentina, Japan, Italy, and Poland. Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon presented it at the Edinburgh Festival. It enjoyed a commemorative rerun at the Flea Theater in 2006 on the 5th anniversary of 9/11. In parts of the theatrical run, the two roles were played by Anthony LaPaglia and Sigourney Weaver. They also star in a 2002 film adaptation, for which Weaver was nominated for a Golden Satellite Award for best performance by an actress. The play was published by Dramatists Play Service and Random House in 2002. The audible.com recorded version, which featured Bill Irwin and Swoosie Kurtz, won an Audie Award for the best-recorded play of the year.