Early life

Ruhl was born in Wilmette, Illinois. Her mother, Kathleen Ruhl, studied theater at Smith College^[3] and earned a Ph.D. in Language, Literacy, and Rhetoric from the University of Illinois and became an English teacher, as well as an actress and a theatre director. Her father, Patrick Ruhl, became a marketer of toys, with an appreciation for literature and music. Her older sister, Kate, is a psychiatrist.^[4]

Beginning in the fourth grade, Ruhl received dramatic training at the Piven Theatre Workshop, in Evanston, Illinois.^[5] On the occasion of a 2015 production at Piven of her Melancholy Play, Ruhl credited the institution with teaching her about the role of language and narration in theater.^[5] Ruhl attended Interlochen Arts Camp for several summers in her youth.^[6]

When Ruhl was twenty, in August 1994, her father died of cancer after fighting the disease for two years, an event that would have a profound impact on her and her art.^[7] Ruhl had intended to become a poet, but after she studied under Paula Vogel at Brown University, she was persuaded to switch to playwriting. Her first play was The Dog Play, written in 1995 for one of Vogel's classes.^[8] She graduated from Brown University with a Bachelor of Arts in English (1997), with her undergraduate work including a year spent at Pembroke College, Oxford.^[7] She worked a variety of jobs for the next two years, including teaching arts education in public schools, before returning to Brown for her Master of Fine Arts in Playwriting (2001).^[7]

Sarah Ruhl currently teaches at David Geffen School of Drama and lives in Brooklyn with her family.^[9]

Playwriting

Orlando, an adaptation of the novel by Virginia Woolf, was commissioned by the Piven Theatre Workshop and premiered in Evanston, Illinois in May 1998 featuring Justine Scarpa as Orlando.^[10] Director Joyce Piven later helmed the show again in March 2003 at The Actors' Gang, Hollywood, California, with Polly Noonan taking on the title role.^[11] The play was produced Off-Broadway by the Classic Stage Company in 2010.^[12][13][14] In 2015, Orlando premiered for the Sydney Theatre Company at the Sydney Opera House with actress Jacqueline McKenzie playing the lead.^[15]

The Lady with the Lap Dog, and Anna Around the Neck (adapted from Anton Chekhov) were commissioned and produced by the Piven Theatre Workshop in 2001.^[16] The two plays are Ruhl's stage adaptions of Anton Chekov short stories.^[17]

Late: A Cowboy Song was produced by Clubbed Thumb (New York City) in 2003.^[18]

The Cornerstone Theater Company (Los Angeles) commissioned Ruhl for a play about young people living in Los Angeles. Cornerstone presented the play, Demeter in the City at REDCAT in June 2006. The play is based on the myth of Demeter and Persephone.^[19][20][21]

The Oldest Boy premiered in November 2014 at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. The play was directed by Rebecca Taichman and starred Celia Keenan-Bolger and James Yaegashi.^[22][23]

Her play Scenes from Court Life, or The Whipping Boy and His Prince premiered at Yale Repertory Theatre on October 1, 2016 in previews, officially on October 6, and ran to October 22, 2016. The play, directed by Mark Wing-Davey, involves "privilege and politics in both 17th century Britain and current day America."^{[24][25][26][27]} The play was presented by the graduate acting class at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University in November 2015.^[28]

Her play How to Transcend a Happy Marriage premiered Off-Broadway at Lincoln Center's Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater on February 23, 2017 in previews, officially on March 20, 2017, directed by Rebecca Taichman.^[29] The cast featured Lena Hall, Marisa Tomei, Brian Hutchison, David McElwee, Naian González Norvind, Omar Metwally, Austin Smith, and Robin Weigert. The play, which takes place in New Jersey, involves two married couples.^[30][31]

For Peter Pan on her 70th birthday premiered Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizon on August 18, 2017 (previews), directed by Les Waters and featuring Kathleen Chalfant and Lisa Emery. The play had its debut at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in May 2016^[32] and then with the Shattered Globe Theatre at Theater Wit in Chicago in May 2017, starring Ruhl's mother Kathleen Ruhl.^[33]

Becky Nurse of Salem premiered at Berkeley Repertory Theatre on December 19, 2019, directed by Anne Kauffman and featured Pamela Reed as the title character.^[34]

She is an active member of New Dramatists, a development space for new playwrights that is in partnership with the NYU Tisch Graduate Acting Program.^[35]

The Clean House

Ruhl gained widespread recognition for her play The Clean House (2004). "The play takes place in a 'metaphysical Connecticut' where married doctors employ a Brazilian housekeeper who is more interested in coming up with the perfect joke than in cleaning. Trouble erupts when the husband falls in love with one of his cancer patients".^[36] It won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2004 and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2005.^[37]

Eurydice

Eurydice (2004) was produced Off-Broadway at the Second Stage Theatre in June to July 2007.^[38] Prior to that it had been staged at Yale Rep (2006), Berkeley Rep (2004), Georgetown University, and Circle X Theatre.^[39] She wrote Eurydice in honor of her father, who died in 1994 of cancer, and as a way to "have a few more conversations with him." The play explores the use and understanding of language, an interest which she shared with her father:^[8]

Each Saturday, from the time Ruhl was five, Patrick took his daughters to the Walker Brothers Original Pancake House for breakfast and taught them a new word, along with its etymology. (The language lesson and some of Patrick's words—"ostracize," "peripatetic," "defunct"—are memorialized in the 2003 Eurydice, a retelling of the Orpheus myth from his inamorata's point of view, in which the dead Father, reunited with his daughter, tries to re-teach her lost vocabulary.)^[8]

Eurydice is Ruhl's version of the classic Eurydice and Orpheus tale.^[38] It portrays an Alice in Wonderland-esque underworld, complete with talking stones and a Lord of the Underworld, who can be seen riding a red tricycle.^[40] In keeping with the play's Greek origins, the Stones serve as a new take on a Greek chorus. The Stones comment on the action and warn the characters, but cannot intervene in any of the events. The play explores relationships, love, communication, and the permeability between the world of the living and the world of the dead, in a quest to discover where true meaning lies in life and thereafter.^[38]

In 2020, Ruhl adapted the play as a libretto for a new opera composed by Matthew Aucoin. It premiered at the Los Angeles Opera on February 1, 2020.^[41] and at the Metropolitan Opera on November 23, 2021.

Passion Play

Ruhl's Passion Play cycle premiered at the Arena Stage, Washington, D.C. in 2005, directed by Molly Smith.^[42] It was next produced by the Goodman Theatre (Chicago) and Yale Rep (New Haven). Ruhl began writing Passion Play at age 21, while studying with Paula Vogel at Brown University. She did not finish the play until eight years later, after Wendy C. Goldberg and Arena's Molly Smith commissioned the third act.^[43] Passion Play made its New York City premiere in Spring 2010 in a production by the Epic Theatre Ensemble at the Irondale Center in Brooklyn.^[44] Each part of the trilogy depicts the staging of a Passion Play at a different place and during a different historical period: Elizabethan England, Nazi Germany, and the United States from the time of the Vietnam War until the present.^[7]

Dead Man's Cell Phone

Dead Man's Cell Phone (2007) premiered Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in 2008 starring Mary-Louise Parker. Its world premiere was at Washington D.C.'s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in 2007.^[45][46] It was subsequently produced by the Steppenwolf Theatre in 2008 and at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2009. The play received a UK premiere at The Arches (Glasgow) in June 2011. The play explores technology and the disconnect people are experiencing in the digital age:

"Cell phones, iPods, wireless computers will change people in ways we don't even understand," Ruhl stated. "We're less connected to the present. No one is where they are. There's absolutely no reason to talk to a stranger anymore—you connect to people you already know. But how well do you know them? Because you never see them—you just talk to them. I find that terrifying."^[8]

In the Next Room

In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) premiered at Berkeley Rep in February 2009.^[47][48] The play opened on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre with previews starting on October 22, 2009 and an official opening in November 2009. This marked Ruhl's Broadway debut.^[49] The play explores the history of the vibrator, developed for use as a treatment for women diagnosed with hysteria. In the Next Room was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama^[37] and was nominated for the 2010 Tony Award for Best Play, Best Featured Actress, and Best Costume.^[50]

Ruhl explains,

One physician quoted in the book [The Technology of the Orgasm] argued that at least three-fourths of women had ailments that could be cured by the vibrator. Which is kind of stunning. The economy for vibrators, even then, was vast; I mean, it was a million-dollar enterprise.^[43]

The play then moved to Sydney, Australia and premiered for the Sydney Theatre Company with Jacqueline McKenzie in the title role. The production was directed by Pamela Rabe.^[51]

Adaptations

• Lady with the Lap Dog, and Anna around the Neck (adapted from Anton Chekhov) (2001)
• Orlando (adapted from Virginia Woolf) (2003)^[11]
• Three Sisters (adapted from Anton Chekhov, Yale Repertory Theatre, 2011)^[69]
• Dear Elizabeth (2012) - (Adapted from Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop)^[70][71]

Other works

• 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write on Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater, Farber and Farber (2014)
• Letters from Max: A Book of Friendship, (co-authored with Max Ritvo), Milkweed Editions (2018)
• Eurydice (libretto), opera, (composer, Matthew Aucoin), (2019)
• 44 Poems for You, Copper Canyon Press, (2020)
• Love Poems in Quarantine, Copper Canyon Press, (2022)
• Smile: The Story of a Face, Simon & Schuster, (2021)^[72]