

Obie Award for Playwriting — Sanctuary City
Two compelling, uncompromising plays about the immigrant experience by the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright of Cost of Living. With humor, grace, and an unsentimental eye, Martyna Majok explores the challenges immigrants face as they strive to carve out a place in a harsh and often indifferent America.
In Ironbound, Darja, a Polish immigrant, negotiates the terms for her future at a rundown bus stop in New Jersey. Over the course of 20 years and three relationships, Darja’s initial search for love becomes eclipsed by her desire for security and survival.
In Sanctuary City, two undocumented teenagers seek refuge in each other and make a pact to stake their claim in America together. But as their experiences and opportunities diverge, their bonds begin to fray, and each must make a difficult choice about what they are willing to sacrifice for their dreams.
- Price: $19.95
- Pages: 240
- Carton Quantity: 36
- Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
- Imprint: Theatre Communications Group
- Publication Date: 5th March 2024
- Trim Size: 5.38 x 8.5 in
- ISBN: 9781559369763
- Format: Paperback
- BISACs:
DRAMA / Subjects & Themes / Emigration & Immigration
DRAMA / Women Authors
DRAMA / American / General
DRAMA / Contemporary
DRAMA / Subjects & Themes / Political & Protest
“If Martyna Majok’s talent weren’t so impressive and her subject so imperative, it would be easy to leave her in peace with her Pulitzer. But the American theater needs her sensibility right now . . . Majok has made it her mission to bring to the stage those characters who historically have played a subordinate role in the theater—the nameless, faceless workers who are hanging on by a thread.” —Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times
“A knockout . . . You seldom see plays that are both harsh and wonderful, but that is the balance that Majok strikes in Ironbound.” —Nelson Pressley, Washington Post
“A quietly gripping play . . . Majok’s perceptive drama, Ironbound, with its bone-dry humor and vivid characters, illustrates how vulnerable people like Darja are hostages to the vagaries of chance.” —Charles Isherwood, New York Times
“In Sanctuary City, America is in the background, and it threatens to take control of the story at any moment. But we understand these two characters because, at Majok’s urging, we’ve taken their timbres into our minds and put them in their rightful places: the unique person over and above the faceless crowd.” —Vinson Cunningham, New Yorker
Obie Award for Playwriting — Sanctuary City
Two compelling, uncompromising plays about the immigrant experience by the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright of Cost of Living. With humor, grace, and an unsentimental eye, Martyna Majok explores the challenges immigrants face as they strive to carve out a place in a harsh and often indifferent America.
In Ironbound, Darja, a Polish immigrant, negotiates the terms for her future at a rundown bus stop in New Jersey. Over the course of 20 years and three relationships, Darja’s initial search for love becomes eclipsed by her desire for security and survival.
In Sanctuary City, two undocumented teenagers seek refuge in each other and make a pact to stake their claim in America together. But as their experiences and opportunities diverge, their bonds begin to fray, and each must make a difficult choice about what they are willing to sacrifice for their dreams.
- Price: $19.95
- Pages: 240
- Carton Quantity: 36
- Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
- Imprint: Theatre Communications Group
- Publication Date: 5th March 2024
- Trim Size: 5.38 x 8.5 in
- ISBN: 9781559369763
- Format: Paperback
- BISACs:
DRAMA / Subjects & Themes / Emigration & Immigration
DRAMA / Women Authors
DRAMA / American / General
DRAMA / Contemporary
DRAMA / Subjects & Themes / Political & Protest
“If Martyna Majok’s talent weren’t so impressive and her subject so imperative, it would be easy to leave her in peace with her Pulitzer. But the American theater needs her sensibility right now . . . Majok has made it her mission to bring to the stage those characters who historically have played a subordinate role in the theater—the nameless, faceless workers who are hanging on by a thread.” —Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times
“A knockout . . . You seldom see plays that are both harsh and wonderful, but that is the balance that Majok strikes in Ironbound.” —Nelson Pressley, Washington Post
“A quietly gripping play . . . Majok’s perceptive drama, Ironbound, with its bone-dry humor and vivid characters, illustrates how vulnerable people like Darja are hostages to the vagaries of chance.” —Charles Isherwood, New York Times
“In Sanctuary City, America is in the background, and it threatens to take control of the story at any moment. But we understand these two characters because, at Majok’s urging, we’ve taken their timbres into our minds and put them in their rightful places: the unique person over and above the faceless crowd.” —Vinson Cunningham, New Yorker