A neo-Restoration comedy of manners, set in the 18th century, but told with a uniquely contemporary feel. The play's protagonist is a 20-year-old male prostitute who passes himself off as a chambermaid, a valet, a landed gentleman and his wife, a beautiful country lass and a handsome rake. The piece looks at our obsessions with pursuing happiness and our all too often inability to recognize it when we have it within our grasp.
Blunt is in love with Molly, a young transvestite prostitute. But when Blunt rescues him from a life on the streets, he doesn't count on Molly falling in love with Dashwood, the handsome womanising rake. Restoration comedy meets modern sex farce in this romantic adventure, exploring the elusive nature of happiness; featuring mistaken identities, duels and double-dealings, gay marriage, and the obligatory sex cave.
David Grimm is a New York-based playwright. His play Kit Marlowe premiered at the Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival and garnered a GLAAD Award Nomination, as well as being cited by the NY Post in their list of the "10 Best Plays of 2000." Other works include The Savages of Hartford, Killing Hilda and Sheridan, or Schooled in Scandal. David Grimm holds an MFA from NYU, a BA from Sarah Lawrence College, and is a lecturer in Playwriting at the Yale School of Drama. He is the recipient of an NEA/TCG Residency Grant and is a member of the Writers Guild, the Dramatists Guild, the Pen American Center, and is an Artistic Associate of Red Bull Theatre.
Source: www.primarystages.com
Measure for Pleasure was workshopped at the 2005 Sundance Theatre Laboratory.
