Playwriting Orlando, an adaptation of the novel by
Virginia Woolf, was commissioned by the
Piven Theatre Workshop and premiered in Evanston, Illinois in May 1998 featuring Justine Scarpa as Orlando. Director
Joyce Piven later helmed the show again in March 2003 at
The Actors' Gang, Hollywood, California, with Polly Noonan taking on the title role. In 2015, Orlando premiered for the
Sydney Theatre Company at the
Sydney Opera House with actress
Jacqueline McKenzie playing the lead.
The Lady with the Lap Dog, and
Anna Around the Neck (adapted from
Anton Chekhov) were commissioned and produced by the Piven Theatre Workshop in 2001. The two plays are Ruhl's stage adaptions of
Anton Chekov short stories.
Late: A Cowboy Song was produced by
Clubbed Thumb (New York City) in 2003. The
Cornerstone Theater Company (Los Angeles) commissioned Ruhl for a play about young people living in Los Angeles. Cornerstone presented the play,
Demeter in the City at REDCAT in June 2006. The play is based on the myth of
Demeter and
Persephone.
The Oldest Boy premiered in November 2014 at the
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. The play was directed by
Rebecca Taichman and starred
Celia Keenan-Bolger and James Yaegashi. Her play
Scenes from Court Life, or The Whipping Boy and His Prince premiered at Yale Repertory Theatre on October 1, 2016 in previews, officially on October 6, and ran to October 22, 2016. The play, directed by Mark Wing-Davey, involves "privilege and politics in both 17th century Britain and current day America." The play was presented by the graduate acting class at the
Tisch School of the Arts at New York University in November 2015. Her play
How to Transcend a Happy Marriage premiered Off-Broadway at Lincoln Center's Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater on February 23, 2017 in previews, officially on March 20, 2017, directed by Rebecca Taichman. The cast featured
Lena Hall,
Marisa Tomei, Brian Hutchison, David McElwee, Naian González Norvind, Omar Metwally, Austin Smith, and
Robin Weigert. The play, which takes place in New Jersey, involves two married couples.
For Peter Pan on her 70th birthday premiered Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizon on August 18, 2017 (previews), directed by Les Waters and featuring
Kathleen Chalfant and
Lisa Emery. The play had its debut at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in May 2016 and then with the Shattered Globe Theatre at Theater Wit in Chicago in May 2017, starring Ruhl's mother Kathleen Ruhl.
Becky Nurse of Salem premiered at
Berkeley Repertory Theatre on December 19, 2019, directed by Anne Kauffman and featured
Pamela Reed as the title character. She is an active member of
New Dramatists, a development space for new playwrights that is in partnership with the NYU Tisch Graduate Acting Program.
The Clean House Ruhl gained widespread recognition for her play
The Clean House (2004). "The play takes place in a 'metaphysical Connecticut' where married doctors employ a Brazilian housekeeper who is more interested in coming up with the perfect joke than in cleaning. Trouble erupts when the husband falls in love with one of his cancer patients". It won the
Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2004 and was a
Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2005.
Eurydice Eurydice (2004) was produced
Off-Broadway at the
Second Stage Theatre in June to July 2007. Prior to that it had been staged at
Yale Rep (2006),
Berkeley Rep (2004), Georgetown University, and
Circle X Theatre. She wrote
Eurydice in honor of her father, who died in 1994 of cancer, and as a way to "have a few more conversations with him." The play explores the use and understanding of language, an interest which she shared with her father: In keeping with the play's Greek origins, the Stones serve as a new take on a Greek chorus. The Stones comment on the action and warn the characters, but cannot intervene in any of the events. The play explores relationships, love, communication, and the permeability between the world of the living and the world of the dead, in a quest to discover where true meaning lies in life and thereafter. and at the
Metropolitan Opera on November 23, 2021.
Passion Play Ruhl's
Passion Play cycle premiered at the
Arena Stage, Washington, D.C., in 2005, directed by
Molly Smith. It was next produced by the
Goodman Theatre (Chicago) and
Yale Rep (New Haven). Ruhl began writing
Passion Play at age 21, while studying with Paula Vogel at Brown University. She did not finish the play until eight years later, after
Wendy C. Goldberg and Arena's Molly Smith commissioned the third act.
Passion Play made its New York City premiere in Spring 2010 in a production by the Epic Theatre Ensemble at the Irondale Center in
Brooklyn. Each part of the trilogy depicts the staging of a Passion Play at a different place and during a different historical period: Elizabethan England, Nazi Germany, and the United States from the time of the Vietnam War until the present.
''Dead Man's Cell Phone'' ''
Dead Man's Cell Phone'' (2007) premiered Off-Broadway at
Playwrights Horizons in 2008 starring
Mary-Louise Parker. Its world premiere was at Washington D.C.'s
Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in 2007. It was subsequently produced by the
Steppenwolf Theatre in 2008 and at the
Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2009. The play received a UK premiere at
The Arches (Glasgow) in June 2011. The play explores technology and the disconnect people are experiencing in the digital age: "Cell phones, iPods, wireless computers will change people in ways we don't even understand," Ruhl stated. "We're less connected to the present. No one is where they are. There's absolutely no reason to talk to a stranger anymore—you connect to people you already know. But how well do you know them? Because you never see them—you just talk to them. I find that terrifying." The play opened on
Broadway at the
Lyceum Theatre with previews starting on October 22, 2009 and an official opening in November 2009. This marked Ruhl's Broadway debut. The play explores the history of the vibrator, developed for use as a treatment for women diagnosed with hysteria.
In the Next Room was a finalist for the 2010
Pulitzer Prize for Drama Ruhl explains, One physician quoted in the book [
The Technology of the Orgasm] argued that at least three-fourths of women had ailments that could be cured by the vibrator. Which is kind of stunning. The economy for vibrators, even then, was vast; I mean, it was a million-dollar enterprise. ==Themes and style==