HAIRY & SHERRI
2F, 3M
Hairy and Sherri (Sharon) are an “adorkable” interracial couple living in gentrified East Austin. When they very graciously and very publicly open their home to Ryshi, a 12-year-old former foster care youth with special needs, Hairy and Sherri are confronted with the horrifying realities of their marriage and “good” intentions.
“Hairy & Sherri” was developed in PlySpace’s artist-in-residence program (supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts).
PRODUCTION HISTORY:
2023 - Salt Lake Acting Company, WORLD PREMIERE
DEVELOPMENT HISTORY:
2024 - Trinity Street Players (Austin, TX), reading
2023 - The Road Theatre Company (Los Angeles, CA), reading
2022 - Sewanee Writers’ Conference, fellowship reading
2022 - KC MeltingPot (Kansas City, MO), reading
2021 - Salt Lake Acting Company, virtual reading
2020 - Queen City New Play Initiative, virtual reading
2020 - The Fire This Time Festival (NYC), reading
2019 - TheatreSquared (Fayetteville, AR), reading
2019 - PlySpace (Muncie, IN), reading
AWARDS/HONORS:
Winner, 2022 Black Playwrights Festival, KC MeltingPot Theatre
Finalist, 2022 NNPN National Showcase of New Plays
Semifinalist, 2022 Risk Theatre Modern Tragedy Playwriting Competition
Finalist, 2020 New American Voices Playwriting Festival
PRESS:
“Suckerpunching the Myth of the Well-Intentioned Ally” - SLUG MAG
“Two outstanding premieres” - UtahReview.com
“Hairy & Sherri at Salt Lake Acting Company Asks for More than Mere Gestures of Compassion” - FrontRowReviewersUtah.com
“World Premiere Hairy & Sherri Packs an Emotional Punch” - Utah Theatre Bloggers Association
Good Things Utah - SLAC world premiere TV interview
Featured in the NYTimes article "Retreating for the Summer, but Not Heading Backwards"
photos by Todd Collins Photography
“Dawes skillfully weaves topics of race, class, relationships, the foster care system and more as the play’s cadence bounces from humorful to deeply gut-wrenching.”
“With an acerbic sense of humor and a dark foreboding . . . Hairy & Sherri doesn’t just take us through the painful quagmire that is the American Foster Care System, it delves into those who wish well, who want to do right, and who appear to be allies.”
“Watching Hairy and Sherri . . . requires the audience member to focus on the characters’ nuanced body language and nonverbal actions. Those subtleties propel the significant epiphanies of Dawes’ script, marvelously crafted in the interplay of dark comedy and the sociological truths embodied in the narrative, and deftly directed by Vickie Washington.”