The plot concerns a group of cheerful Americans living in Illinois, who, content with their lives and comfortable with their positions in society, are shaken up by a mysterious, beautiful, inexplicably melancholy young stranger who works at the bank. Tilly, she's named, and the way her aura of sweet sorrow draws these other characters inexorably towards her forms the backbone of this play.
Her longing gazes out of open windows onto gray rainy days and large, heartfelt sighs express with just the right amount of irony that hopelessly romantic condition of yearning melancholia that her character is meant to portray. 

Lorenzo, a European from an Unspecified European City, Frank, an uptight and socially upright tailor, Frances, a hairdresser, and Joan, a taciturn and overbearing nurse fill the story with eccentric and sometimes confused behavior. All of these characters, initially so cheerful and content with their social usefulness, eventually succumb to an obsession for Tilly and her charismatic fits of emotion. (From dailyprinceonian.com)

From Director Jonathan Taylor:

“Melancholy Play strikes me as a play about modern happiness, or rather, how modern society places such pressure on people to be "happy" or at least to look and broadcast "happy" to the world. Modern society tells us that we should exhibit extreme emotion, nothing subtle, and to fill our voids with false love, pills, and friend requests. Despite the gravity of these premises, Melancholy Play is at heart a farcical romantic comedy and, most importantly, offers us a ray of hope at the end. We aren’t doomed! Happiness is attainable for everyone; it just may not be in the shape you thought it would come in Sarah Ruhl’s writing style captures what I believe to be the zeitgeist of the new American theater. Her writing is poetic, whimsical, and inherently theatrical. Plays need to stop competing with film and television,  that is a losing battle. Enough realism already, give me magic!”

In the weeks to come, Upstart and all Dallas theatres will continue the tradition of theatre into the new year. Come join us in ushering in the next chapter in our collective passion!!

FOR ANY QUESTIONS CONCERNING TICKETS AND RESERVATIONS, PLEASE CONTACT JUSTIN LOCKLEAR WITH PUBLIC RELATIONS -->  justin@upstarttheater.com