←Recommendations of marked green at birth, marked female at birth

Whether it was my own privilege or neurodivergence, I don't remember middle school being this hard. I also have maybe 4 memories total of middle school. One of them was a girl in eighth grade who convinced me she was a werewolf. You know what? Never mind. This play is a queer femme monument to the insanity of middle school and tweenhood, and how much harder it is to be perceived (particularly by boys). Such a fantastic ensemble piece.

A wonderful, complicated, slice-of-life ensemble piece.

Premiere Stages, the professional Equity theatre company in residence at Kean University, is pleased to recognize marked green at birth, marked female at birth by Sophie Sagan-Gutherz as a Semi-Finalist for the 2024 Premiere Play Festival. marked green at birth, marked female at birth rose through a competitive selection process conducted by Premiere staff and a panel of outside theatre professionals to become one of 48 Semi-Finalists out of 760 submissions. The panel was particularly impressed by Sophie’s sensitive and vivid exploration of teenage pressures particularly resonated. Our congratulations and thanks to Sophie.

Delicious, dizzying, harrowing, I did not sign up to be perceived in this manner. Grounded and also madcap raucous wild theatrical. A freakin' feat.

I really loved these characters and particularly connected with Star, who doesn't yet have the language or life experience to put a name to what it is they're feeling every time they use food or drugs or exercise to push it away. There's something painfully familiar about these characters-the play is specific to 2008 but could take place any time. I loved how brave and vibrant these "girls" are and wanted to wrap them all in a big hug!

What a spectacular ensemble piece! I loved its poetry, complex structure, and deftly rendered cast of characters. The use of the characters to voice male voices on AIM was also a brilliant detail that underscored the central thread here--the toxic, long-lasting, deleterious effects of the cis-het male gaze. Sagan-Gutherz's text vacillates between complex and lyrical monologues to astutely-observed naturalistic scenes to sequences with the potential for play with movement and physical poetry. They bring together such unique and disparate theatrical elements into a coherent aesthetic vision. I would so love to see this staged on its feet!

A play that needs to be read by teens everywhere. Love the poetry and messing with form going on here. A coming of age story where the participants have so little say over what they are becoming. The specificity of the time period and technology was so effective. Can't wait to read more by Sophie Sagan-Gutherz. This is a playwright to watch.

I had the pleasure of seeing the Pride Plays reading of Sophie Sagan-Gutherz's magnificent play. It is thoughtful and touching and rings so perfectly true as a play about young people who really do sound and feel authentically young. I wish I'd had "marked green at birth, marked female at birth" in my life when I was a queer middle and high schooler (though I didn't know it yet)!