2006 Playwrighting Contest Winner

Full Length:

Endurance by Jennifer Fell Hayes

Play Summary:
Teenage Fithian has to undergo a painful, lengthy medical procedure twice a week to keep his older brother, Ray, alive. To survive this, he spends time going in his mind to the South Pole with Sir Ernest Shackleton, his hero. He feels trapped and resentful, and hostilities develop between the very different brothers, one, slight, artistic, and possibly gay, the other tall, athletic and heterosexual. Finally the treatment stops working, and Ray becomes sick. The brothers recognize their love for each other as Ray dies. Fithian is able to see Ray?s courage and acceptance of death, and understand his brother is now part of him.

Play History:
Endurance was one of three winners in the TRU (Theatre Resources Unlimited) 6th Annual New Plays Reading Series in 2004, and was given an equity-contract staged reading at the Greenwich St. Theatre, NYC. One of the TRU judges commented that he thought it was the best play that they had had so far in their series. Algonquin Productions, NYC, gave a revised version a further stage equity-contract reading at St. Clements Church, NYC the following year.

About the Author:
Jennifer ispublished by Samuel French and New Plays, Incorporated, has won several awards, and am a founder/partner of DramaMuse, consultants on drama in museum education. She has been commissioned by, and written plays for such museums as the Liberty Science Center, The Museum of the Native American, Smithsonian Institution, the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum, the Tenement Museum, Jay Heritage Center and the Melville Museum at Arrowhead, MA. Her book, Pioneer Journeys: Drama in Museum Education, co-authored with Dorothy Napp Schindel, won the Distinguished Book of the Year award from the American Association of Theatre and Education. She was playwright-in-residence at City Lights Youth Theatre, NYC for ten years. She is currently a playwright with Algonquin Productions. She lives and works in Manhattan, and is on the full-time faculty of Friends Seminary, where she runs the drama program, teaches and directs.

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