My Barking Dog

"And the question is: Are the coyotes the last dregs of a wild we are inevitably surrounding... or are they the first scouts of a wild that is inevitably surrounding us?"
Toby and Melinda live quiet lonely lives in their apartment building. Until the night when a starving coyote shows up on their fire escape. From here their world spirals magically, wildly out of control as they embrace...
"And the question is: Are the coyotes the last dregs of a wild we are inevitably surrounding... or are they the first scouts of a wild that is inevitably surrounding us?"
Toby and Melinda live quiet lonely lives in their apartment building. Until the night when a starving coyote shows up on their fire escape. From here their world spirals magically, wildly out of control as they embrace their animal instincts - every night bonding deeper with their untamed visitor. By turns highly poetic, disturbing, and dangerous, "My Barking Dog" is a riotous, riveting exploration of the lengths to which our everyday lives have disconnected us from nature, and what happens when the boundaries between wild and civilized are gnawed clean through.

“GO! At various moments poetic, funny, gripping and stomach-churning, and sometimes all these things together.” --L.A. Weekly
“An intense, captivating, and improbably funny 90-minute piece…" -- The Plain Dealer
“For nimble minds seeking a more cerebrally challenging alternative to the commercialized platitudes that tend to crop up around Earth Day, ‘My Barking Dog’ could be just the ticket.” -- Los Angeles Times
“The edgy magical realism is darkly comic, disturbingly funny, and haunting” -- Cleveland Magazine
“Smart, witty, theatre of the absurb-esque... A stream-lined, no-fat depiction of two lonely souls possibly finding their ultimate purpose in life.” -- BroadwayWorld.com
“A great new American play... a boldly imaginative theater piece that is strange and startling as well as humorous and oddly touching.” -- Cleveland Jewish News
“This is a truly magnificent piece of work... as funny as it is thought-provoking, and as imaginative as it is relevant" -- The News-Herald
“Leave your expectations at home. ...Truly, Fantastic.” --On Stage Los Angeles
“Gets under your skin to resonate both thematically and dramatically” --Stage Raw
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My Barking Dog

Recommended by

  • Lisa Dellagiarino Feriend:
    21 Jan. 2023
    Wow, this play is a wild ride! A coyote shows up one night on the fire escape of an apartment building, and it ends up completely changing the lives of two people who live there. This two-hander is so full of magic, so easy to stage, and has a message about our disappearing wild spaces as well. It's so thoroughly theatrical. I adore it.
  • John Perovich:
    20 Jan. 2023
    AHHHHH! What a ride! An imaginative, singular exploration of contemporary living and the natural (wild?) world. I will never get over the FULL journey from page one to where we end up — something I always look for in a play…a complete, unpredictable journey. There’s beauty, strangeness, poetry, and magic…with the real. A complete, fantastical delight.
  • Cheryl Bear:
    25 Jul. 2020
    A fantastic exploration of our primitive and civilized selves as a visitor takes them out of the beaten down mundane to a magical journey that allows them to inhabit their wild nature. Magnificent work!

Production History

  • Professional
    ,
    Rabbit Hole Theatre, London, UK
    ,
    2016
  • Professional
    ,
    Convergence-Continuum Theatre, Cleveland, OH
    ,
    2016
  • Professional
    ,
    Urbanite Theatre, Sarasota, FL
    ,
    2016
  • Professional
    ,
    The Theatre @ Boston Court
    ,
    2015
  • Professional
    ,
    Cleveland Public Theatre
    ,
    2012