P&P Live! Sarah Ruhl — Smile: The Story of a Face - in conversation with Catherine Lacey

Upcoming Event
Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - 6:00pm

CLICK HERE to register for the virtual event!

With a play opening on Broadway, and every reason to smile, Sarah Ruhl has just survived a high-risk pregnancy when she discovers the left side of her face is completely paralyzed. She is assured that 90 percent of Bell's palsy patients see spontaneous improvement and experience a full recovery. Like Ruhl's own mother. But Sarah is in the unlucky ten percent. And for a woman, wife, mother, and artist working in theater, the paralysis and the disconnect between the interior and exterior brings significant and specific challenges. So Ruhl begins an intense decade-long search for a cure while simultaneously grappling with the reality of her new face--one that, while recognizably her own--is incapable of accurately communicating feelings or intentions.

In a series of piercing, witty, and lucid meditations, Ruhl chronicles her journey as a patient, wife, mother, and artist. She explores the struggle of a body yearning to match its inner landscape, the pain of postpartum depression, the story of a marriage, being a playwright and working mom to three small children, and the desire for a resilient spiritual life in the face of illness.

Sarah Ruhl is a playwright and writer of other things. Her fifteen plays include In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play), The Clean House, and Eurydice. She has been a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, a Tony Award nominee, and the recipient of the MacArthur "genius" Fellowship. Her plays have been produced on- and off-Broadway, around the country, internationally, and have been translated into many languages. Her book 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write was a New York Times Notable Book. Her other books include Letters from Max, with Max Ritvo, and 44 Poems for You. You can read more about her work at SarahRuhlPlaywright.com.

Ruhl will be joined in conversation with, Catherine Lacey, the author of four books. Her work has been translated into a dozen languages and earned the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Whiting Award.

**If you would like to join the workshop led by Sarah Ruhl that includes the book, please click here for more information!

Politics and Prose Live!
Washington, DC 20008
Non Fiction
Offsite
Smile: The Story of a Face By Sarah Ruhl Cover Image
$27.00
ISBN: 9781982150945
Availability: Special Order—Subject to Availability
Published: S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books - October 5th, 2021

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