Description
A seminal work of trans theater brought to the page for the first time
When Pony, a formerly incarcerated trans guy, moves to a small rural town to start a new life, he quickly becomes entangled with its isolated community. He starts to fall for a waitress who is obsessed with a local murder; he must comply with a butch social worker who doesn't understand him; and he is pursued by a young trans man who thinks Pony could be the father he always wanted. Amid this whirlwind of fear and desire, Pony must find the strength to confront the stories he's been told about masculinity, violence, and self-worth. With a new preface by the author on searching for queer and trans community in the theater, and an afterword by critic Miriam Felton-Dansky contextualizing its place in contemporary theater, Pony is a seminal work of trans theater exploring questions of generational difference, class, and gender on an epic scale.
About the Author
Sylvan Oswald writes formally inventive plays and performance texts that explore queer and trans life. His work has been performed throughout the US and in London; his honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is a professor of playwriting at UCLA.
Reviews
"How do we reckon with the places where love and violence brush past? How do we free ourselves from the histories inside which we're trapped? Pony is a play like a riddle, a play like a dare. Built from a theatrical language of longing and family, shape-shifting and queerness, Pony is a play about the stories we inhabit, the ones we become, and the urgency of unraveling those stories before they bury us. It has haunted me ever since I saw its earliest incarnation onstage in Chicago, and reencountering it now brings the keen pleasure of a mystery that only deepens with time." - Jen Silverman, playwright, novelist and screenwriter
Book Information
ISBN 9780810148659
Author Sylvan Oswald
Format Paperback
Page Count 144
Imprint Northwestern University Press
Publisher Northwestern University Press
When Pony, a formerly incarcerated trans guy, moves to a small rural town to start a new life, he quickly becomes entangled with its isolated community. He starts to fall for a waitress who is obsessed with a local murder; he must comply with a butch social worker who doesn't understand him; and he is pursued by a young trans man who thinks Pony could be the father he always wanted. Amid this whirlwind of fear and desire, Pony must find the strength to confront the stories he's been told about masculinity, violence, and self-worth. With a new preface by the author on searching for queer and trans community in the theater, and an afterword by critic Miriam Felton-Dansky contextualizing its place in contemporary theater, Pony is a seminal work of trans theater exploring questions of generational difference, class, and gender on an epic scale.
About the Author
Sylvan Oswald writes formally inventive plays and performance texts that explore queer and trans life. His work has been performed throughout the US and in London; his honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is a professor of playwriting at UCLA.
Reviews
"How do we reckon with the places where love and violence brush past? How do we free ourselves from the histories inside which we're trapped? Pony is a play like a riddle, a play like a dare. Built from a theatrical language of longing and family, shape-shifting and queerness, Pony is a play about the stories we inhabit, the ones we become, and the urgency of unraveling those stories before they bury us. It has haunted me ever since I saw its earliest incarnation onstage in Chicago, and reencountering it now brings the keen pleasure of a mystery that only deepens with time." - Jen Silverman, playwright, novelist and screenwriter
Book Information
ISBN 9780810148659
Author Sylvan Oswald
Format Paperback
Page Count 144
Imprint Northwestern University Press
Publisher Northwestern University Press
