FEIFFER - Im Gonna Pray for You So Hard

CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that performance of the Play IM GONNA PRAY FOR YOU SO HARD is subject to payment of a royalty. The Play is fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America, and of all countries covered by the International Copyright Union (including the Dominion of Canada and the rest of the British Commonwealth), and of all countries covered by the Pan-American Copyright Convention, the Universal Copyright Convention, the Berne Convention, and of all countries with which the United States has reciprocal copyright relations. All rights, including without limitation professional/ amateur stage rights, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio broadcasting, television, video or sound recording. all other forms of mechanical, electronic and digital reproduction, transmission and distribution, such as CD, DVD, the Internet, private and file-sharing networks, information storage and retrieval systems, photocopying, and the rights of translation into foreign languages are strictly reserved. Particular emphasis is placed upon the matter of readings, permission for which must be secured from the Authors agent in writing. Inquiries concerning rights should be addressed to ICM Partners 730 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10019.

Attn: Di Glazer. This edition first published in the United States and the United Kingdom in
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or write us at the above address. Copyright 2015 by Halley Feiffer All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

ISBN 978-1-4683-1656-8

HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS AND THEN KILL THEM Ms. Feiffer is building a reputation for fearlessness. Neil Genzlinger, The New York Times Thank God for the warped creative mind of playwright/actress Halley Feiffer, who harnesses the weird to full, gory effect in How to Make Friends and Then Kill Them, an uproarious and deeply unsettling new dark comedy Equally laugh-out-loud funny, jaw-droppingly gross, and thoroughly sad Feiffers unique, refreshing voice is one to which attention should be paid. David Gordon, Theatermania Disturbingly funny. Joe Dziemianowicz, New York Daily News A wicked comedy Feiffer is an expert comic actor with an appealingly skewed sensibility. The New Yorker Theres great stuff here dark and weird. Time Out New YorkIM GONNA PRAY FOR YOU SO HARD Viciously funny brutally effective. Time Out New YorkIM GONNA PRAY FOR YOU SO HARD Viciously funny brutally effective.

Feiffer takes a tough look at the forces that can bring us to our knees. Adam Feldman, Time Out New York A bone-chilling punishing drama. Charles Isherwood, The New York Times Blistering, blackly funny. Joe Dziemianowicz, New York Daily News One minute youre laughing, the next youre cringing the play sticks in your head like a crazy nightmare. Elisabeth Vincentelli, New York Post Funny, scary, and completely over the top in its own right goes straight for the jugular through the heart. Robert Hofler, The Wrap Provocative, sensitive, shocking and often very unsettling polished and probing.

One of the best plays Ive seen this season. Rex Reed, New York Observer Exhilaratingly toxic. Joe McGovern, Entertainment Weekly A hard-hearted stunner. Michael Schulman, The New Yorker Halley Feiffers ferocious, explosive dialogue in Im Gonna Pray For You So Hard is in a class of its own. Lee Kinney, TheEasy.com Its a fearless piece of work, riveting and hilarious. Robert Feldberg, Bergen RecordHALLEY FEIFFER is a New York-based writer and actress.

Her full-length plays include Im Gonna Pray For You So Hard (World Premiere Atlantic Theater Company, 2015), How To Make Friends And Then Kill Them (World Premiere Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, 2014), and A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Gynecologic Oncology Unit At Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center of New York City (World Premiere MCC Theater, 2016). Her plays have been developed by Manhattan Theatre Club, Second Stage, New York Theater Workshop, LAByrinth Theater Company, The ONeill, and elsewhere. She holds commissions from Manhattan Theatre Club, The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Williamstown Theater Festival, Jen Hoguet Productions, and Playwrights Horizons. She co-wrote and starred in the 2013 film Hes Way More Famous Than You and co-created and stars in the web series Whats Your Emergency.

A young actress, Ella, has just opened in a production of The Seagull, and some hours later, in the wee hours of the night, is in her playwright fathers kitchen on the Upper West Side of Manhattan (ahh the Upper West Side, home to world-weary artists of a certain generation, to refugees from the old world, exiles and psychiatrists, Jewish intellectuals, and so on, all virtually extinct), all of whose children have fled now for Brooklyn, the coast, or at least somewhere below Houston Street. A young actress, Ella, has just opened in a production of The Seagull, and some hours later, in the wee hours of the night, is in her playwright fathers kitchen on the Upper West Side of Manhattan (ahh the Upper West Side, home to world-weary artists of a certain generation, to refugees from the old world, exiles and psychiatrists, Jewish intellectuals, and so on, all virtually extinct), all of whose children have fled now for Brooklyn, the coast, or at least somewhere below Houston Street.

Because children flee their parents, as they must, as they should, in order to become whatever they must be. Not, however, Ella, the actress in question. In her mid 20s at least, she is still a captive to her fathers opinions and decrees, which tonight spew forth from his mouth in an endless fountain not of youth but of vitriol, spleen, and rage. (Along the lines of Youre too good for the role of Masha / you shoulda been Nina / but the production was terrible anyway, the director is a hack, AND he was too busy to direct my last play.) And THIS father knows from the theatre; what with his aging Pulitzer on the shelf, endless anecdotes about how he came up, and a paucity of new ideas, grace, or generosity, he is THE authority, the final word, the bottom linewhen it comes to passing judgment on his daughter and her nascent life in the now dead and useless American theatre, which he feels has spit him out like a husk. And thus begins Halley Feiffers brilliant and harrowing play about art and life in the theatre, fathers and daughters, and the making of clever little monsters. Im Gonna Pray For You So Hard dives long and deep into a spectacularly dangerous and ill-lit poola final night, as it were, of the soul for a young artist who can barely keep up with her fathers coke, screeds, and weed use but tries gamely, while in the other room, the young actresss mother, a silent party, a totem and victim, has retired for the night but can still hear the laughter and venom wafting in to the bedroom from the kitchen where the action all goes down.