Doctor Voynich and Her Children

Doctor Rue Voynich and her apprentice Fade travel the American Heartland dispensing herbal medications. Covertly, they perform abortions--long ago made illegal. Fade tries to help local youth Hannah complete her abortion, using knowledge from an ancient manuscript, before her mother and the sheriff can nail them for the “attempted murder of an unborn person.”
>>This post-Roe v. Wade play about...
Doctor Rue Voynich and her apprentice Fade travel the American Heartland dispensing herbal medications. Covertly, they perform abortions--long ago made illegal. Fade tries to help local youth Hannah complete her abortion, using knowledge from an ancient manuscript, before her mother and the sheriff can nail them for the “attempted murder of an unborn person.”
>>This post-Roe v. Wade play about mothers and daughters is poetic, sexy, vulgar, queer, and a little too real.
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Doctor Voynich and Her Children

Recommended by

  • Noah Good:
    15 Mar. 2024
    This play is absolutely incredible. Brilliant world-building (which feels all too real), complex relationships between characters, and a sweet and sexy budding queer relationship. A must read!
  • Tyler Everett Adams:
    20 Mar. 2023
    The world Leanna has created in this play is absolutely extraordinary: it sits the perfect proximate between feeling dystopian and distant, and also close enough to be entirely possible. The characters are charming and richly drawn, and are wonderfully nuanced & trope-defying portrayals of queer and trans women. I taught the play in a Queer Theater class with much success last fall, and also directed a production; I've been in love ever since. Also acting teachers/coaches: it has *great* scenes for your scene study classes; or better yet, direct the whole thing! A stunner play!
  • Grace Everett:
    26 Apr. 2022
    This play was taught in my college dramatic literature class, and HO-LY SHIT. I am astounded to see that it only has three reviews, because from the way it was presented to us, I had every reason to believe it was a part of the contemporary theatrical canon (which it should be!). Keyes creates a theatrical hellscape far away enough to be dystopian, but close enough to be fathomable. Not to mention the existence of queer and trans women in a way that does not turn us into spectacles, but instead, shows us as the resilient human beings we are.

Character Information

  • RUE
    40s,
    Trans woman
    An herbalist
  • JESS
    40s,
    woman
    A mother
  • HARRISON
    50s,
    woman
    An officer of the law
  • HANNAH
    Late teens,
    woman
    A young woman seeking an abortion
  • FADE
    Late teens,
    woman, Non-binary
    An apprentice

Production History

  • University
    ,
    Linfield College
    ,
    2021
  • Community Theater
    ,
    Uprising Theatre Company
    ,
    2020
  • University
    ,
    Stanford University: [wit]: a gender conscious theater company
    ,
    2018
  • University
    ,
    Rhodes College, McCoy Theatre
    ,
    2018

Awards

Semi-Finalist
,
Bay Area Playwrights Festival 2018
,
Playwrights Foundation
,
2018