Gruesome Playground Injuries

✦ About the Play

Two people. Thirty years. A lifetime of wounds.

Over the course of 30 years, the lives of Kayleen and Doug intersect at the most bizarre intervals, leading the two childhood friends to compare scars and the physical calamities that keep drawing them together. The two friends and would-be lovers meet at eight years old in the nurse's office of their elementary school; Kayleen has a painful stomach ache and Doug a nasty scrape. As they grow up, they continue to come back to each other, brought together by injury, heartbreak and their own self-destructive tendencies.

Production History

Gruesome Playground Injuries premiered at the Alley Theatre in Houston, Texas on October 16, 2009. Directed by Rebecca Taichman, the production featured Selma Blair and Brad Fleischer. It later premiered in New York City at Second Stage Theatre on January 31, 2011. Directed by Scott Ellis, the New York production featured Jennifer Carpenter and Pablo Schreiber. It was revived off-Broadway in 2025, starring Kara Young and Nicholas Braun.