three boys
‘i love him and he loves me back, but he loves someone else and he’s done something terrible and I don’t know if i’m upset about this terrible thing he’s done or if i’m upset because he won’t keep all of his love just for me’.
it’s the dawn of the new millennium. churches become cathedrals. songs become confessions. lovers become secrets. a woman haunts the stone of the altar. as they grapple with what it means to love and be loved for the very first time, three choirboys realise that they have all fallen for the same person - the priest that has been abusing them.
THREE BOYS is the devastating, darkly funny, and wholly surreal debut play by danielle james exploring faith, abuse, motherhood, love, and being forced to grow up. and the Virgin Mary. lots of the Virgin Mary.
“There are many people who can write plays that appear to be well made, that people will think look like a play. And then there are those plays that take you, and they either kick you in the solar plexus, or they pluck out your heart, and you know it’s cost the writer something. If the writer has no skill, it is still devastating to read those plays. When the writer is a poet and a dramatist in the way that Danielle James is a poet and a dramatist, it makes you sit up and take notice. And that is Three Boys. ”
accolades for three boys :
⋆｡°✩ finalist for the women’s prize for playwriting 2025
⋆｡°✩ longlisted for the bruntwood prize 2025
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