Clara Thomas Bailey

by Caridad Svich

2023 excerpt from the play published in The New England Review (44.3)
2022 Semi-Finalist, Blue Ink Award, American Blues Theater.
Nominated for the 2021 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.
2021 Finalist for the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference.

Hi. My name is Clara. My name is Thomas. My name is Bailey. This is my/Ur/our story. This is a portrait in motion. A day in a life. A life in an hour. When the world's...

2023 excerpt from the play published in The New England Review (44.3)
2022 Semi-Finalist, Blue Ink Award, American Blues Theater.
Nominated for the 2021 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.
2021 Finalist for the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference.

Hi. My name is Clara. My name is Thomas. My name is Bailey. This is my/Ur/our story. This is a portrait in motion. A day in a life. A life in an hour. When the world's on fire. When our hearts are rent. When our bodies may be failing us. When we look at the sky and the birds too to figure out a way through again.

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Clara Thomas Bailey

Recommended by

  • Ryan Rappaport: Clara Thomas Bailey

    This play is like a memory of a tapestry. C. T. and B. (the three actors) weave in and out of telling a rich first-and-second-person narrative while inhabiting fleeting memories of other characters. The scenes are definite and, like a memory, momentary. Stress, tension, and joy all intermingle and weave together to craft a compelling and approachable narrative.

    How Svich utilizes the second-person voice is one of the many highlights of this play. This voice draws the audience into Clara Thomas Bailey's mind and history and settles us into every nuanced feeling they experience. I absolutely...

    This play is like a memory of a tapestry. C. T. and B. (the three actors) weave in and out of telling a rich first-and-second-person narrative while inhabiting fleeting memories of other characters. The scenes are definite and, like a memory, momentary. Stress, tension, and joy all intermingle and weave together to craft a compelling and approachable narrative.

    How Svich utilizes the second-person voice is one of the many highlights of this play. This voice draws the audience into Clara Thomas Bailey's mind and history and settles us into every nuanced feeling they experience. I absolutely enjoyed this play.

  • Samantha Marchant: Clara Thomas Bailey

    “I mean everything I say. No subtext.” What a wonderful line from a script filled with wonderful words. Reading it, I was completely swept up in the tone and cadence. The scenes in the waiting room… so good!

    “I mean everything I say. No subtext.” What a wonderful line from a script filled with wonderful words. Reading it, I was completely swept up in the tone and cadence. The scenes in the waiting room… so good!

  • Nick Malakhow: Clara Thomas Bailey

    Stunning and super compelling and inventive meditation on the lingering hum of anxiety and existential dread of being alive...though it manages to be that in a propulsive and theatrical and exciting fashion! This really does capture a mood or atmosphere of the current moment, though the themes of contemporary urban loneliness and alienation, cycles and relationships, and physical and mental self care feel eternally relevant. I also thought this piece was very aesthetically coherent and distinct, while leaving incredibly generous room for a production team to leave its mark on it.

    Stunning and super compelling and inventive meditation on the lingering hum of anxiety and existential dread of being alive...though it manages to be that in a propulsive and theatrical and exciting fashion! This really does capture a mood or atmosphere of the current moment, though the themes of contemporary urban loneliness and alienation, cycles and relationships, and physical and mental self care feel eternally relevant. I also thought this piece was very aesthetically coherent and distinct, while leaving incredibly generous room for a production team to leave its mark on it.

View all 7 recommendations

Development History

  • Type Reading, Organization The Lark, Year 2021

Awards