About the Author
Sarah Ruhl is an award winning playwright, essayist, and poet. She has written fifteen plays including In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play), The Clean House, and Eurydice. Her plays have been produced on- and off-Broadway, around the country, internationally, and have been translated into many languages.
Her most recent book, Lessons from My Teacher, is an extraordinary collection of essays that testify to the singular impact of teachers across every stage of our lives. Elizabeth Strout calls it “Pristine, perfect [with] multitudes of truthful lessons for anyone who is wondering about Life—and how to move through it.” Sarah Ruhl is also the author of The Dreams I’ll Dream Tonight, Smile: A Memoir (longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence), 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write (a New York Times Notable Book), Letters from Max (with Max Ritvo), and 44 Poems for You.
She has been a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, a Tony Award nominee, and the recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship. Sarah Ruhl has received the Steinberg Playwright Award, the Samuel French Award, the Feminist Press Under 40 Award, the National Theater Conference Person of the Year Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, a Whiting Award, a Lily Award, and a PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award.
Sarah Ruhl teaches at the Yale School of Drama, and lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Tony Charuvastra, who is a child psychiatrist, and their three children.
Contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau to book Sarah Ruhl for speaking events. Use the Request a Speaker form or email info@simonspeakers.com to speak to Sarah Ruhl’s booking agent to request her speaking fee, booking information, and availability.
Raves and Reviews
Praise for Lessons from My Teachers
A true tribute to those who teach, Ruhl’s Lessons from My Teachers masterfully captures the ineffable essence of all that passes between teacher and student, offering a beautiful depiction of the transformation possible within the teacher-student relationship.”
—Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness and Real Life
The gardener or a cranky neighbor, the local falafel man or the family dog, even a monster film executive—almost anybody can be a teacher for those who seek to learn. Such is the central lesson of Lessons, an inspiring collection that might be called an autobiography were it not for the fact that the teller of each tale is never the center of the story. Or, rather, she is the center but not as an individual exactly, but as a welcoming and collective being who happens to bear the name of Sarah Ruhl.”
—Lewis Hyde, author of The Gift and A Primer for Forgetting
Pristine, perfect. These Short essays contain multitudes of truthful lessons for anyone who is wondering about Life—and how to move through it. A really lovely book.”
—Elizabeth Strout, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Olive Kitteridge and Tell Me Everything
Praise for Smile: A Memoir
With a poet’s sharp eye for detail and a playwright’s grasp of both the tragic and the absurd, Sarah Ruhl has written a remarkable book. Smile is at once a gripping story and a profound exploration of the mysteries of illness. I know of nothing like it.”
—James Shapiro, author of Shakespeare in a Divided America
I’m now accustomed to Sarah’s whipping out profound and necessary books that I can’t put down even when I smell dinner burning, but I guess I wasn’t prepared for her book about Bell’s Palsy to provide some of the most deeply romantic passages about married love I have ever read. I smiled, for sure, but I also swooned and ached and was left with goose-flesh more than once. I adore this book.”
—Mary Louise Parker, New York Times bestselling author of Dear Mr. You
Sarah Ruhl’s ravishing memoir, Smile, is that rare and gorgeous melding of gemlike, literary insights, raw honesty, heart break and radiant wisdom. It took my breath away. For real.”
—V (formerly Eve Ensler), New York Times bestselling author of I Am an Emotional Creature, The Vagina Monologues and The Apology
Easily one of the best things I’ve read this year… Not unlike her stage work, thoughts, moods and ideas skip through so seamlessly, you pause momentarily, not out of confusion but to look up, surprised at your destination. If you require a memoir to provide a lesson, it’s this: Stop trying to read a person’s face.”
—Chicago Tribune
In this stunning work, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Ruhl reflects on her long and arduous battle with Bell’s palsy after giving birth to twins….As she recounts learning to find joy in small things—such as regaining the ability to blink—Ruhl proves that even life at its most mundane can be fascinating. This incredibly inspiring story offers hope where it’s least expected.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
In the Media
“My daughter was in the Brown University library, hiding under the desk”
“For Two Playwrights, a Connection That Began When One Made the Other Cry”“An Acclaimed Playwright on Masks and the Return to the Stage”
“Eurydice at 18: On the Off-Broadway Revival of Sarah Ruhl’s Beloved Play”“Poetry in Three Dimensions: Sarah Ruhl on Bringing the Words of Max Ritvo to the Theater”
“Playwright and Memoirist Sarah Ruhl on Writing as a Form of Healing and Connection”
