''The Country Club'' is an off-Broadway play written by

Douglas Carter Beane Douglas Carter Beane is an American playwright and screenwriter. Born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and raised in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, Beane now lives in New York. His works include the screenplay of ''To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! J ...

Plot

Soos, a young, witty, charming neurotic, retreats to her upper-class hometown in the aftermath of a failed marriage. The type of ''WASP'' domain with houses “that made

Martha Stewart Martha Helen Stewart (, ; born August 3, 1941) is an American retail businesswoman, writer, and television personality. As founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, she gained success through a variety of business ventures, encompassing pu ...

forget she was Polish.” As party after party unfolds, the getaway weekend gives way to a year, and ultimately the rest of her life. Brittle conversation is bandied about, and Soos is reunited with her onetime boyfriend, the charming Zip (Played by Jared Kressman). She also returns to her circles of old friends: the highly strung party planner Froggy and her starchy husband Bri; the wry and sarcastic Pooker; the alcoholic good ol' boy Hutch. But cracks soon begin to show in the facade. Soos falls in and out of an easy relationship with Zip, as he starts an affair with Chloe, a working-class Roman Catholic girl from Philadelphia (who is also engaged to Hutch). Lives are casually destroyed, lives careen onward, and through it all tragedies are endured without ever being mentioned. As Pooker observes between cocktail sips, "We all have our little stories and nobody brings them up. That's what's known as community spirit."

Productions

The play was presented Off-Broadway by the Drama Dept. at the Greenwich House Theater, running from September 14, 1999 to December 18, 1999. The production received 2000 Drama Desk Award nominations for Outstanding Costume Design and Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play (Sedaris). The play had "small productions" at the Dorset Theater Festival (Vermont) and Mojo Ensemble (Los Angeles) prior to the production at the Long Wharf Theatre. The play premiered at the

Long Wharf Theatre Long Wharf Theatre is a nonprofit institution in New Haven, Connecticut, a pioneer in the not-for-profit regional theatre movement, the originator of several prominent plays, and a venue where many internationally known actors have appeared. Fou ...

, New Haven, Connecticut in January 1998."Long Wharf Show Archive, 1998"
longwharf.org, accessed January 3, 2016

Crew

Cast (Off-Broadway)

* 45th Annual Drama Desk Awards nomination (2000)

Notes

Sources

45th Annual Drama Desk Awards, 2000
{{DEFAULTSORT:Country Club 1999 plays Off-Broadway plays Plays set in Philadelphia Plays by Douglas Carter Beane Comedy plays