A SAMUEL FRENCH, INC. TITLE

Bull in a China Shop

Full-Length Play, Comedy  /  5w

Inspired by the real letters between Mary Woolley and Jeannette Marks from 1899 to 1937, this pugnacious and gloriously funny play is a dynamic queer romantic comedy set during the fight for women’s rights.

  • Cast Size
    Cast Size
    5w
  • Duration
    Duration
    90 minutes
  • SubGenre
    Subgenre
    Biography, Period
  • Audience
    Target Audience
    Adult

Details

Summary

Inspired by the real letters between Mary Woolley and Jeannette Marks spanning from 1899 to 1937, a fast-paced comedy asking: what is revolution? What does it mean to be at odds with the world? How do we fulfill our potential? And how the hell do we grow old together?

History

Bull in a China Shop premiered at LCT3 in New York City on 11 February 2017. Directed by Lee Sunday Evans, the production featured Michele Selene Ang, Enid Graham, Crystal Lucas-Perry, Lizbeth Mackay and Ruibo Qian.

Cast Attributes
Performing Groups

WOOLLEY – Mary. The swagger of a gunslinger buttoned into an ankle length dress; a confident and caring partner to Marks. 
MARKS – Jeannette. A moody and fitful writer and partner, an enigmatic teacher; Woolley’s former student and current partner, ten years Woolley’s junior.
DEAN WELSH – A tight-lipped New England type. Woolley’s subordinate but Marks’ superior.
PEARL – The president of a secret society of fangirls of the relationship between Marks and Woolley, Marks’ obsessively devoted student. 
FELICITY – Marks’ roommate in a house off-campus named Sweet Pea. A professor in the Philosophy Department.

A note about casting:
This is an excavation of queer history, a history that has been buried and hidden and kept from us. It’s also a queering of history, a look at past events through a contemporary gaze. Queering history entails making room for the people who have been routinely denied a place in the narrative. There are no white men in this play, but it should not be filled entirely with white women either. This play is filled with purposeful anachronisms. That’s part of the point. This is a startlingly contemporary play.

A note about casting:
This is an excavation of queer history, a history that has been buried and hidden and kept from us. It’s also a queering of history, a look at past events through a contemporary gaze. Queering history entails making room for the people who have been routinely denied a place in the narrative. There are no white men in this play, but it should not be filled entirely with white women either. This play is filled with purposeful anachronisms. That’s part of the point. This is a startlingly contemporary play.

  • Time Period 1930s
  • Setting

    An old Massachusetts’ seminary-turned-university between 1899 and 1937.

  • Features Period Costumes
  • Duration 90 minutes
  • Cautions
    • Strong Language

Media

“A marvelous play about empowerment, rights and ambition.” – Dallas Voice

Critic’s Pick! “A pugnacious, tender and gloriously funny new play. Bryna Turner makes an immensely auspicious professional playwriting debut... Bull in a China Shop is passionate, joyous and radiant with life!” – The New York Times

★★★★! “Bull in a China Shop does the sisterhood proud! Heartbreaking, hilarious and delectable.” – Time Out New York

“Playwright Bryna Turner’s Bull in a China Shop has a quality of essential joy that makes it hard at times to remember that these 19th/early 20th-century queer characters (mostly, anyway) are truly in the eye of a storm of social upheaval and anger... Though the stakes of their social activism are high, Bull is a romantic comedy at heart: kisses and fights and reconciliations and infatuated teenagers lolling about – fun, all the way through, but full of emotions and ideas that make it all mean something.” – Onstage North Texas

“A crystalline play... The Brooklyn-based Turner has said they spent years trying to figure out how not to write a boring biographical account. They succeeded. Bull does a remarkable job telling a thematic story rather than getting bogged down in the details.” – Dallas Morning News

Videos

  • Montage from LCT3's Bull in a China Shop youtube thumbnail

    Montage from LCT3's Bull in a China Shop

  • Info about Bull in a China Shop youtube thumbnail

    Info about Bull in a China Shop

Licensing & Materials

Scripts

Available Formats:

Authors

Bryna Turner

Bryna Turner is a Brooklyn-based playwright originally from Northern California.

Their play At the Wedding had its world premiere in 2022 at LCT3 at Lincoln Center Theater. It received the Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation’s Theatre Visions Award, was a NY Times Critic’s Pi ...

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