Sarah Ruhl

Sarah Ruhl (born 1974) is an American playwright. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for a distinguished American playwright in mid-career. Two of her plays have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama — The Clean House (2004) and In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) (2009). 2Biography 3Early life Ruhl was born in Wilmette, Illinois. Her mother, Kathleen Ruhl, earned a Ph.D. in Language, Literacy, and Rhetoric, from the University of Illinois and became an English teacher, as well as an actress and a theatre director. Her father, Patrick Ruhl, became a marketer of toys, with an appreciation for literature and music. Her older sister, Kate, is a psychiatrist. Ruhl began her "dramatic training" at the Piven Theatre Workshop (Evanston, Illinois) in fourth grade. Joyce Piven, the theatre's matriarch said: “The Piven Theatre Workshop was a major influence on Sarah, and I’m old enough not to be modest about it." Originally, Ruhl intended to be a poet. However, after she studied under Paula Vogel at Brown University, she was persuaded to switch to playwritin