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About Family
Her mother, Kathleen Ruhl, studied theater at Smith College and earned a Ph.D. in Language, Literacy, and Rhetoric from the University of Illinois and became an English teacher, as well as an actress and a theatre director. Her father, Patrick Ruhl, became a marketer of toys, with an appreciation for literature and music. Her older sister, Kate, is a psychiatrist. -
Sarah Ruhl
Sarah Ruhl is an American playwright, poet, professor, and essayist. Ruhl was born in Wilmette, Illinois. -
Father's Death
When Ruhl was twenty, in August 1994, her father died of cancer after fighting the disease for two years, an event that would have a profound impact on her and her art. -
First Play
Her first play was The Dog Play, written in 1995 for one of Vogel's classes. Sarah Ruhl wrote of her father’s death from that unique angle: a dog is waiting by the door, waiting for the family to come home, unaware that the family is at his master’s funeral, unaware of the concept of death. -
Poet to Playwriter?
Ruhl had intended to become a poet, but after she studied under Paula Vogel at Brown University, she was persuaded to switch to playwriting -
Education
She graduated from Brown University with a Bachelor of Arts in English (1997), with her undergraduate work including a year spent at Pembroke College, Oxford. She worked a variety of jobs for the next two years, including teaching arts education in public schools, before returning to Brown for her Master of Fine Arts in Playwriting (2001). -
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4 Adaptations
Lady with the Lap Dog, and Anna around the Neck (adapted from Anton Chekhov) (2001)
Orlando (adapted from Virginia Woolf) (2003)
Three Sisters (adapted from Anton Chekhov, Yale Repertory Theatre, (2011)
Dear Elizabeth (2012) - (Adapted from Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop) -
Eurydice Play
She wrote Eurydice in honor of her father, who died in 1994 of cancer, and as a way to "have a few more conversations with him." The play explores the use and understanding of language, an interest which she shared with her father -
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All Plays (original)
Dog Play
Snowless
Melancholy Play
Virtual Meditations#1
Passion Play
Eurydice
Late: A Cowboy Song
The Clean House
Demeter in the City
Dead Man's Cell Phone
In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play)
Stage Kiss
Two Conversations Overheard on Airplanes
The Oldest Boy
Scenes from Court Life, or The Whipping Boy and His Prince
How to Transcend a Happy Marriage
For Peter Pan on her 70th Birthday
Becky Nurse of Salem
Letters From Max (2023) -
The Clean House Play
Ruhl gained widespread recognition for her play The Clean House (2004). "The play takes place in a 'metaphysical Connecticut' where married doctors employ a Brazilian housekeeper who is more interested in coming up with the perfect joke than in cleaning. Trouble erupts when the husband falls in love with one of his cancer patients" -
Marriage
In 2005, Ruhl married child psychiatrist Tony Charuvastra. -
Children
Ruhl and Charuvastra have three children: Anna (18) and twins William and Hope (14). -
Dead Man's Cell Phone Play
Dead Man's Cell Phone is a play by Sarah Ruhl. It explores the paradox of modern technology's ability to both unite and isolate people in the digital age.
"We're less connected to the present. No one is where they are. There's absolutely no reason to talk to a stranger anymore—you connect to people you already know. But how well do you know them? Because you never see them—you just talk to them. I find that terrifying." -
The Vibrator Play?? (In The Next Room)
The play explores the history of the vibrator, developed for use as a treatment for women diagnosed with hysteria. -
What does she do now?
Sarah Ruhl currently teaches at David Geffen School of Drama and lives in Brooklyn with her family