Gracie Gardner – författare

Mary Wallace and Athena are brave and seventeen and fencers and training for the Junior Olympics. They practice together they compete against each other they spend their lives together. They wish they were friends.

One of Manhattan's most established play festivals the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival fosters the work of emerging writers giving them the exposure of publication and representation. The 43rd collection includes: Rabiosa by Nelson Diaz-MarcanoThe Forgotten Place by Jeff LockerBaked Goods by Charlie Cohen Helen Park and Christyn BudzynaBallgirl by Gracie GardnerBetter by Vince GattonThe Ferberizing of Coral by Patrick Flynn

Four patients go to a skin cancer hospital for treatment but among the two doctors the patients and the people supporting them questions arise concerning who is sick who is healing and who has the power to decide.

Pussy Sludge is a play about a woman with a broken pussy.There’s a woman menstruating crude oil. She lives in a swamp. She’s in love with Courtney, but her mother prefers RJ.No one knows who knows what’s best.Gracie Gardner’s award-winning play sketches a dystopian setting with an eponymous main character who, in a number of absurd encounters, resists stereotypical gender constructions and socially predetermined life models. Farmore than just a feisty criticism of patriarchal systems, the play turns power structures upside down and offers a surreal and comic parable of sexual self-determination that challenges conservative gender constructs and our patriarchal status quo with vigor and irony.Pussy Sludge is a tender exploration of questioning authority, suspending shame through intimacy, and very bad advice.

Why Athena? I guess just like the goddess of strategic warfare and all that. In a New York City fencing club two warriors are ready to battle. Athena and Mary Wallace are training for the Junior Olympics. They practice together. They compete against each other. They spend their lives together. They wish they were friends. From Award-winning playwright Gracie Gardner, following an acclaimed extended run in New York, comes a fierce coming of age comedy where two teenagers parry class, competition and power as they practice fencing and life. But only one will win - en garde. This edition was published to coincide with the UK premiere at The Yard in London in October 2021.