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A SAMUEL FRENCH, INC. TITLE
Full-Length Play, Drama / 2m
Samuel D. Hunter
Inside a cubicle in a small office in southern Idaho, two men struggle to balance the confounding terms on a loan. Samuel D. Hunter’s intimate, powerful play is a thoughtful meditation on human resilience.
Image: 2022 Signature Theatre Company Production (Emilio Madrid)
Winner! 2022 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best PlayNominee: Five 2023 Lucille Lortel Awards, including Outstanding PlayNominee: Two 2023 Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Play
A thoughtful and meditative two-hander, Samuel D. Hunter’s extraordinary play is both intimate and expansive as it explores themes of parenthood, financial insecurity and empathy.
A Case for the Existence of God unfolds in a cubicle where two seated people unexpectedly choose to bring one another into their fragile worlds. Keith, a mortgage broker, and Ryan, a yogurt plant worker seeking to buy a plot of land that belonged to his family many decades ago, realize they share a “specific kind of sadness.” At this desk in the middle of America, loan talk opens up into a discussion about the chokehold of financial insecurity and a bond over the precariousness of parenthood. With humor, empathy and wrenching honesty, Hunter commingles two lives and deftly bridges disparate experiences of marginality.
KEITH – Male, mid to late thirties, black.RYAN – Male, mid to late thirties, white.
A cubicle inside a small business in Twin Falls, Idaho. The present or recent past.
“[A] must-see heartbreaker of a play.” – The New York Times
Critic’s Pick! “Heartbreaking... though A Case makes the connection between personal and societal calamity more explicit than ever – can it be just an accident that it’s set in Twin Falls? – it may also be the purest example yet of Hunter’s approach to playwriting as an experiment in empathy.” – The New York Times
“Crystalline... The playwright has reduced his components to the bare minimum, offering us Hunter superfans a chance to marvel at his elegant way with exposition and the stealthy way he lures us down into the deep end of the emotional pool.” – Vulture
“Easily one of the best of the year... Mr. Hunter, one of the finest playwrights at work today, is anything but an ideologue. His subject is the complexities of specific human beings – appealingly unexceptional ones – and the trials, large and small, that life throws their way. Mr. Hunter's plays are notable, or rather remarkable, for their laid-back simplicity and the depth of the compassion he shows for his characters.” – The Wall Street Journal
“Phenomenal. Transcendent. An instant classic.” – Theatrely
“Deeply compassionate, quietly remarkable... the play is constantly dynamic as it pulls you into its world... As in his previous works Pocatello, Greater Clements, and especially The Whale, Hunter has a gift for telling stories of ordinary people at crossroads and in crisis. He has an ear for dialogue that stubbornly rings true. On paper the title smacks of something on a grand scale; on stage the story is small and big at the same time.” – New York Theatre Guide
“Stunning... A Case for the Existence of God is a world premiere, and there hasn’t been a better one for a play this theater season in New York City.” – The Wrap
★★★★★ “Another extraordinary play by Samuel D. Hunter.” – New York Stage Review
ON BREAKING CHARACTER
Samuel D. Hunter In Five Playsby Concord TheatricalsMarch 31, 2025
A Case for the Existence of God – Pioneer Theatre Trailer
A Case for the Existence of God – CBS Boston Interview with Samuel D. Hunter
Samuel D. Hunter is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and producer whose deeply human stories explore faith, family and the American experience. In 2025, Hunter made his Broadway debut with the critically acclaimed play Little Bear Ridge Road, starring Laurie Metcalf ...
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