BORN WITH TEETH

Synopsis & HISTORY

(2M)

An aging ruler, an oppressive police state, a restless polarized people seething with paranoia: it’s a dangerous time for poets. Two of them—the great Kit Marlowe and the up-and-comer Will Shakespeare—meet in the back room of a pub to collaborate on a history play cycle, navigate the perils of art under a totalitarian regime, and flirt like young men with everything to lose.

Born with Teeth premiered at the Alley Theatre, Houston, May–June 2022, directed by Rob Melrose. That production moved to the Guthrie Theater, March–April 2023, and will move again to Asolo Repertory Theater, Feb–March 2024, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival, March–September 2024. The play had its second production at Aurora Theater Company, Berkeley CA, in September 2023.

In 2019 it had a workshop at the Alley, and a reading at Aurora; it had a 2022 staged reading at Shakespeare & Company in the Berkshires. It was awarded a 2021 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award and won the Houston Theater Awards 2022 Best Play/Production, Best New Play, and Best Actors. It was named a finalist for the Steinberg-ATCA New Play Award.

Watch

The Guthrie Theater “sizzle” reel; click here.

From Alley Theater premiere. Directed by Rob Melrose. Cast: Matthew Amendt and Dylan Godwin. Scenic Design by Michael Locher, Costume Design by Alejo Vietti, Lighting Design by Carolina Ortiz Herrera, Music & Sound Design by Cliff Caruthers, Stage Manager Jocelyn A. Thompson, and Assistant Stage Manager Rachel Dooley-Harris. Photographer: Lynn Lane.

READ IT

Digital or hard copy acting editions available at TRW Plays here.

Or buy it at the Drama Book Shop, NYC.

PRESS

“Adams writes not with a pen so much as a razor blade, and the play cuts to the bone as Kit and Will trade barbs, ambitions and, ultimately, places in a history play that rewrites our understanding of these two figures.”––Star-Tribune, Minneapolis. Full review here.

“From her post-apocalyptic “Dog Act” to “Or,” her deliciously witty play about playwright Aphra Behn, Adams’ plays are always marked by dazzlingly inventive language. The relentless verbal sparring between Shakespeare and Marlowe is a beguiling blend, poetic enough to be suggestive of the period while also accessibly, amusingly modern. As befits two writers of such genius, their dialogue is devilishly clever and incessantly quotable. It would be impossible to write down all the great lines in the play, because they just keep coming. Adams deftly inserts plenty of historical details, but ultimately it doesn’t matter how much of what’s depicted may or may not have happened. Her versions of Shakespeare and Marlowe are irresistible. Every moment between the two is electrically charged, whether with danger, sexual tension or just writers lingering lovingly on language. It’s a wonderfully funny, sexy and suspenseful play that’s thrilling from beginning to end. One can’t help but suspect that its subjects would relish its craft as they do each other’s.”––Sam Hurwitt, Mercury News. Full review here.

“Born with Teeth, now playing on the Alley Theatre’s Neuhaus stage, can’t decide if it is about literature, history, political intrigue, religious persecution, or the wide varieties of love, and that’s a good — no, make that glorious — thing. The play grabs them all and squeezes them into a trim, tight, electric production…. [a] jewel of a script.”––Houston Chronicle. Full review here.

“If you, dear playgoer, desire time travel with a vengeance, then take my hand and merrily traipse with playwright Liz Duffy Adams back to Elizabethan England via quick-witted punk sensibility in her delicious fantasia Born with Teeth. In a season replete with world premieres, the Alley Theatre's stunning production just might be the crown jewel.” ––Houston Press. Full review here.

“It's one part fan fiction, one part examination of egos, and another part commentary of the destructive capabilities of societal expectations. We spend ninety minutes watching a game between the best writers of their time. The stakes range from who can be the most clever, to life and death. For a play that spends all its time on two characters in one location, it did a remarkable job presenting an ever-unfolding path of twists and turns. The audience gasped more than once when they were taken off guard.”––Broadway World, Houston. Full review here.