What do you think?
Rate this book
And Baby Makes Seven
Book annotation not available for this And Baby Makes Vogel, Dramatist's Play ServicePublication 2006/01/06Number of Binding PAPERBACKLibrary of oc2007073450
72 pages, Paperback
First published January 6, 2006
75 people want to read
About the author
Paula Vogel
44 books127 followersPaula Vogel is an American playwright and university professor. She received the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play, How I Learned to Drive.
Vogel was born in Washington, D.C. to Donald Stephen Vogel, an advertising executive, and Phyllis Rita Bremerman, a secretary for United States Postal Service Training and Development Center. She is a graduate of The Catholic University of America (1974, B.A.) and Cornell University (1976, M.A.). Vogel also attended Bryn Mawr College from 1969 to 1970 and 1971 to 1972.
A productive playwright since the late 1970s, Vogel first came to national prominence with her AIDS-related seriocomedy The Baltimore Waltz, which won the Obie award for Best Play in 1992. She is best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning play How I Learned To Drive (1997), which examines the impact and echoes of child sexual abuse and incest. Other notable plays include Desdemona, A Play About A Handkerchief (1979); The Oldest Profession (1981); And Baby Makes Seven (1984); Hot 'N Throbbing (1994); and The Mineola Twins (1996).
Although no particular theme or topic dominates her work, she often examines traditionally controversial issues such as sexual abuse and prostitution. Asserting that she "writes the play backwards," moving from emotional circumstances and character to craft narrative structure, Vogel says, "My writing isn't actually guided by issues.... I only write about things that directly impact my life." Vogel adds, "If people get upset, it's because the play is working." Vogel's family, especially her late brother Carl Vogel, influences her writings. Vogel says, "In every play, there are a couple of places where I send a message to my late brother Carl. Just a little something in the atmosphere of every play to try and change the homophobia in our world." Carl's likeness appears in such plays as The Long Christmas Ride Home (2003), The Baltimore Waltz, and And Baby Makes Seven.
"Vogel tends to select sensitive, difficult, fraught issues to theatricalize," theatre theorist Jill Dolan comments, "and to spin them with a dramaturgy that’s at once creative, highly imaginative, and brutally honest."[3] Her work embraces theatrical devices from across several traditions, incorporating, in various works, direct address, bunraku puppetry, omniscient narration, and fantasy sequences. Critic David Finkel finds this breadth in Vogel's career to be reflective of a general tendency toward stylistic reinvention from work to work. "This playwright recoils at the notion of writing plays that are alike in their composition," Finkel writes. "She wants each play to be different in texture from those that have preceded it."
Vogel, a renowned teacher of playwriting, counts among her former students Susan Smith Blackburn Prize-winner Bridget Carpenter, Obie Award-winner Adam Bock, MacArthur Fellow Sarah Ruhl, and Pulitzer Prize-winners Nilo Cruz and Lynn Nottage.
During her two decades leading the graduate playwriting program and new play festival at Brown University, Vogel helped developed a nationally-recognized center for educational theatre, culminating in the creation of the Brown/Trinity Repertory Company Consortium with Oskar Eustis, then Trinity's artistic director, in 2002. She left Brown in 2008 to assume her current posts as adjunct professor and the Chair of the playwriting department at Yale School of Drama, and the Playwright-in-Residence at Yale Repertory Theatre. Vogel previously served as an instructor at Cornell University during her graduate work in the mid-1970s.
Recently Second Stage Theatre announced that they would be producing How I Learned To Drive as a part of their 2011-2012 season. It will be the first New York City production of this show in 15 years.
Subsequent to her Obie Award for Best Play (1992) and Pulitzer Prize in Drama (1998), Vogel received the Award for Literature from The American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2004.
She won the 1998 Susan Smith Blackburn P
Vogel was born in Washington, D.C. to Donald Stephen Vogel, an advertising executive, and Phyllis Rita Bremerman, a secretary for United States Postal Service Training and Development Center. She is a graduate of The Catholic University of America (1974, B.A.) and Cornell University (1976, M.A.). Vogel also attended Bryn Mawr College from 1969 to 1970 and 1971 to 1972.
A productive playwright since the late 1970s, Vogel first came to national prominence with her AIDS-related seriocomedy The Baltimore Waltz, which won the Obie award for Best Play in 1992. She is best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning play How I Learned To Drive (1997), which examines the impact and echoes of child sexual abuse and incest. Other notable plays include Desdemona, A Play About A Handkerchief (1979); The Oldest Profession (1981); And Baby Makes Seven (1984); Hot 'N Throbbing (1994); and The Mineola Twins (1996).
Although no particular theme or topic dominates her work, she often examines traditionally controversial issues such as sexual abuse and prostitution. Asserting that she "writes the play backwards," moving from emotional circumstances and character to craft narrative structure, Vogel says, "My writing isn't actually guided by issues.... I only write about things that directly impact my life." Vogel adds, "If people get upset, it's because the play is working." Vogel's family, especially her late brother Carl Vogel, influences her writings. Vogel says, "In every play, there are a couple of places where I send a message to my late brother Carl. Just a little something in the atmosphere of every play to try and change the homophobia in our world." Carl's likeness appears in such plays as The Long Christmas Ride Home (2003), The Baltimore Waltz, and And Baby Makes Seven.
"Vogel tends to select sensitive, difficult, fraught issues to theatricalize," theatre theorist Jill Dolan comments, "and to spin them with a dramaturgy that’s at once creative, highly imaginative, and brutally honest."[3] Her work embraces theatrical devices from across several traditions, incorporating, in various works, direct address, bunraku puppetry, omniscient narration, and fantasy sequences. Critic David Finkel finds this breadth in Vogel's career to be reflective of a general tendency toward stylistic reinvention from work to work. "This playwright recoils at the notion of writing plays that are alike in their composition," Finkel writes. "She wants each play to be different in texture from those that have preceded it."
Vogel, a renowned teacher of playwriting, counts among her former students Susan Smith Blackburn Prize-winner Bridget Carpenter, Obie Award-winner Adam Bock, MacArthur Fellow Sarah Ruhl, and Pulitzer Prize-winners Nilo Cruz and Lynn Nottage.
During her two decades leading the graduate playwriting program and new play festival at Brown University, Vogel helped developed a nationally-recognized center for educational theatre, culminating in the creation of the Brown/Trinity Repertory Company Consortium with Oskar Eustis, then Trinity's artistic director, in 2002. She left Brown in 2008 to assume her current posts as adjunct professor and the Chair of the playwriting department at Yale School of Drama, and the Playwright-in-Residence at Yale Repertory Theatre. Vogel previously served as an instructor at Cornell University during her graduate work in the mid-1970s.
Recently Second Stage Theatre announced that they would be producing How I Learned To Drive as a part of their 2011-2012 season. It will be the first New York City production of this show in 15 years.
Subsequent to her Obie Award for Best Play (1992) and Pulitzer Prize in Drama (1998), Vogel received the Award for Literature from The American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2004.
She won the 1998 Susan Smith Blackburn P
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
February 3, 2021
“We’re going to tidy up the plots. No loose ends dangling. Starting tomorrow. We’re going to kill them. One by one. First Orphan. Then Henri. Cecil will be the last to go.”
the concept of the show was really interesting and is a lot different than another of the other stuff that i’ve read by puala vogel. it’s weird, absrud, and a little heartbreaking towards the end. i wish there was more scenes between the 3 characters to establish more of their relationship since most of the show deals with their “children”. there was a lot of stuff going on in the background which i enjoyed and there seems to be a lot of different layers to the show. also the ending scene was kinda creepy but also pretty impactful.
the concept of the show was really interesting and is a lot different than another of the other stuff that i’ve read by puala vogel. it’s weird, absrud, and a little heartbreaking towards the end. i wish there was more scenes between the 3 characters to establish more of their relationship since most of the show deals with their “children”. there was a lot of stuff going on in the background which i enjoyed and there seems to be a lot of different layers to the show. also the ending scene was kinda creepy but also pretty impactful.
April 4, 2024
After reading “Baltimore Waltz,” I think this play is disappointing. Both plays are whimsical and absurd, but “TBW” feels grounded in an emotional truth in a way “ABMS” doesn’t. If we got more of the adults’ actual relationships, I might feel differently. I’m still happy I read this one since it’s another Vogel play I haven’t seen performed .
April 27, 2019
Read this again because now I'm involved with a production of it....But this is such an adorable and wacky play. I do love how this play aged well throughout the years. It's so present now. I love it.
July 7, 2017
This play was very wild but incredibly though provoking. I can tell I'll be thinking about this one for a long time
September 6, 2021
I love a good weird tale but this was too weird, particularly what could at times come off as make-believe pedophilia. The final image is poignant but not worth the journey in my opinion.
November 25, 2021
Actual rating: 3.5
March 6, 2024
Really interesting play, a little confusing at times and deeply disturbing at others, but not entirely alienating.
May 28, 2024
paula vogel spouting the gospel of throuple since 1984
March 18, 2026
i’m confused
January 31, 2013
This play by Paula Vogel is a charming three character play. Two women and a man, await the arrival of a child the three will share. Before they can welcome the new baby into the household, they have to let go of the three imaginary children who already live there. In true Vogel style, the imaginary children, played by the two actresses, seem so real it becomes heartbreaking. Because the two actresses have a tour de force as they play the two women and their imaginary alter-egoes, the play is immensely entertaining as well as being quirky and insightful. There is depth of meaning hiding in the corners. It sneaks up on you. 5 stars
June 1, 2007
the narrative structure of these women's lives is so fascinating--about lesbians who want to have their own child, and the unseen outcomes when a male friend is brought into the equation.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews