WHICH WAY TO THE STAGE

by Ana Nogueira

Comedy-Drama, Full-length

The years is 2015 and Jeff and Judy are right where they’re supposed to be: waiting outside the stage door of the Broadway musical If/Then hoping to meet their idol. But the conversation they have while they wait will change the course of their decades long friendship forever. A playful yet profound comedy about friendship, ambition, and the traps and triumphs of femininity.

“WHICH WAY TO THE STAGE is the best new comedy since theaters reopened.”
—The Wrap

“...Delightfully wry theater world comedy.”
—The Washington Post

“WHICH WAY TO THE STAGE will enchant the ex-theater kid...But it will also make you think, between laughs, about the deeper issues that permeate a beloved but problematic subculture.”
—Exeunt

Casting:

1W, 2M

Cast of Characters
(2W, 2M)

JUDY
30s, Funny, intelligent, has bigger dreams than she can admit to herself. She is Jeff’s best friend. Sometimes gets in her own way. Judy is real. She is not unattractive, but she is not the female ideal. She’s just a real woman trying to make it in a business that thrives on a fantasy.

JEFF
30s, Passionate, talented. Has a great sense of humor, but deep down takes it all very seriously. He is Judy’s best friend. Jeff is also “real.” Anything about him that might come off as a typical “Queen” is extremely authentic. He is who he is and is not apologizing for it.

MARK
30s, Robert Redford’s character from The Way We Were if instead of being a novelist he was a musical theater performer. Good looking. Complacent. Things come easily to him. One minute you’re sure you know everything about him, the next he is surprising you in the most wonderful ways.

ACTRESS, BACHELORETTE, CASTING DIRECTOR
30s, A beautiful young actress who seems to have it all/A drunk Bachelorette/An exhausted casting director.

Setting:
2015
The stage door of IF/THEN, an audition waiting room, a drag club.

Author

Ana Nogueira

Ana Nogueira is a writer and actress. Her play WHICH WAY TO THE STAGE was chosen to be part of the Pacific Playwrights Festival at South Coast Rep, and her play EMPATHITRAX received its world premiere production with Colt Coeur. Her work has been developed at Second Stage, The New Group, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Barrington Stage and Ensemble Studio Theater. She is a recipient of a Sloan Grant for playwriting, and the Elizabeth George Emerging Playwright commission...[FULL BIO]