alphabetical author index

We Are Not These Hands

  • Sheila Callaghan
  • Full Length Play, Comedy, Contemporary
  • 1M, 2F
  • ISBN: 9780573696695

"Bold and engaging, We Are Not These Hands is as fun as it is engaging... Rich in detail and full of humor and pathos."

Oakland Tribune

  • Full Length Play
  • Comedy
  • 90 minutes

  • Time Period: Contemporary
  • Target Audience: Adult
  • Set Requirements: Bare Stage/Simple Set
  • Cautions: Strong Language, Mild Adult Themes

  • Performance Group:
  • College Theatre / Student, Professional Theatre, Blackbox / Second Stage /Fringe Groups
Ever since their school blew up, Moth and Belly have taken to stalking an illegal internet café in the hopes of one day being allowed in. They take particular interest in Leather, a skittish older man doing research in the café.

Leather is a self-proclaimed "freelance scholar" from a foreign land with a sketchy past and a sticky secret. Leather begins to fall head over heals in love with Moth... but what about Belly? This play explores the effects of rampant capitalism on a country that is ill-prepared for it.

REVIEWS:

"Bold and engaging. We Are Not These Hands is as fun as it is engaging... Rich in detail and full of humor and pathos."

 Oakland Tribune

"Swaggering eccentricity... Callaghan takes a lavish mud bath in a broken language... Ripe apocalyptic slang; at its best, it's racy and unrefined, the kind of stuff you might imagine kids in the back alleys of a decaying world might sling around."

 The Washington Post

"The gap between rich and poor yawns so wide it aches in Sheila Callaghan's We Are Not These Hands, but much of the ache is from laughter. Hands is a comically engaging, subversively penetrating look at the human cost of unbridled capitalism on both sides of the river... the anger of the play's social vision is partly concealed by its copious humor, emerging more forcefully after it's over... Hands bristles with bright, comic originality, particularly in depicting the limitations of its people."

 San Francisco Chronicle

Premiere Production: We Are Not These Hands was commissioned by Eye of the Storm Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota; developed by Soho Rep in New York City; and workshopped by Playpenn in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The play was first presented by Crowded Fire Theatre with support from The Playwrights Foundation in Berkley, California, in July 2006.
  • Casting: 1M, 2F
  • Casting Attributes: Features Teens

  • BELLY - Young woman, early teens (15 years), tough, hard, street-smart, incredibly dirty.
    MOTH - Young woman, early teens (15 years), bright, sweet, a little bit manipulative.
    LEATHER - Man, age 35-45, manic and odd.
  • Name Price
    We Are Not These Hands Script Order Now

    Ever since their school blew up, Moth and Belly have taken to stalking an illegal internet café in the hopes of one day being allowed in. They take particular interest in Leather, a skittish older man doing research in the café.Leather is a self-proclaimed 'freelance scholar' from a foreign land with a sketchy past and a sticky secret. Leather begins to fall head over heals in love with Moth... but what about Belly? This play explores the effects of rampant capitalism on a country that is ill-prepared for it.

    $24.95