The Violet Sisters

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, Pam comes home to Brooklyn to attend her father’s funeral. When she arrives, she is greeted by an angry sister, a dilapidated house and a past that she can’t escape. Despite all of her best intentions, the conversation quickly turns tense and the two sisters are forced to deal with all that they have let slip away, all the words that have been left unsaid for years. A two-person...
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, Pam comes home to Brooklyn to attend her father’s funeral. When she arrives, she is greeted by an angry sister, a dilapidated house and a past that she can’t escape. Despite all of her best intentions, the conversation quickly turns tense and the two sisters are forced to deal with all that they have let slip away, all the words that have been left unsaid for years. A two-person, one set, real time play, The Violet Sisters is a play about forgiving when you cannot bring yourself to forget.

  • Recommend
  • Download
  • Save to Reading List

The Violet Sisters

Recommended by

  • Heather Helinsky:
    29 Feb. 2024
    I first encountered this play as the guest selector at GPTC in 2016, and this two-character play had deep emotional impact on audiences. I was thrilled to dramaturg it in a virtual reading at New Harmony in 2021, further confirmation of this play's solid storytelling of the complicated way two sisters handle grief differently in the wake of Hurricane Sandy's devastation. There are layers of muddy sediment in the relationship between the sisters, as their traumas resurface. Gina knows this neighborhood and renders it so we don't forget the tough women who survived not just Sandy, but other emotional storms.
  • Melissa Schmitz:
    4 Nov. 2022
    THE VIOLET SISTERS by Gina Femia is a play I still think about even though I read it a few years ago. If you want a two-hander with strong female leads, suspense, dynamic characters that actors can really sink their teeth into, realistic dialog, and a play about family, look no further. Highly highly recommend.
  • Alexa Rowe:
    9 Jun. 2022
    This beautiful play tells a dynamic story of two sisters so powerfully in its deeply rooted realism and intensely thrusts us into such a claustrophobic world of the duo at the heart of the story.

Character Information

  • Sam
    mid-30s,
    Any
    ,
    Female
    A true Brooklynite through and through, she’s lived there and hasn’t left her whole life. Tough and sarcastic, deeply hurt and vulnerable.
  • Pam
    early 30s,
    Any
    ,
    Female
    Very LA. Professional, efficient, sharp in tone and demeanor. Driven, tough.

Development History

  • Workshop
    ,
    Playwrights Center
    ,
    2020
  • Reading
    ,
    Project Y Theatre
    ,
    2019
  • Reading
    ,
    Women's Theatre Festival of North Carolina
    ,
    2018
  • Reading
    ,
    Best of Occupy The Space, Women's Festival
    ,
    2018
  • Reading
    ,
    Urbanite Theatre's Modern Works Festival
    ,
    2018
  • Reading
    ,
    The Bridge Initiative
    ,
    2018
  • Reading
    ,
    The Lark
    ,
    2017
  • Reading
    ,
    Great Plains Theatre Conference
    ,
    2016
  • Reading
    ,
    Lather, Rinse, Repeat: A Playwright's Collective
    ,
    2015
  • Reading
    ,
    New York Madness
    ,
    2015

Production History

  • University
    ,
    Emory College
    ,
    2019
  • University
    ,
    Middlebury College
    ,
    2018

Awards

Finalist
,
Artemisia Playwrights Festival
,
2018
Finalist
,
Modern Works
,
The Urbanite
,
2018
Semi-Finalist
,
SPACE on Ryder Farm
,
2017
Finalist
,
NEWvember
,
2015
Finalist
,
Panndora's Box
,
2015