"... a roller coaster ride of pathos and laughs" - Jack Neal, KUNR Radio
"... a clever, funny play that pokes fun at self identity and self worth." - Mark Nichols, Round Rock Leader
"... an honest and even optimistic look at the faceless intimacy forged from behind
glowing computer screens across the country." - John E. Thomas, Bayside Times
Nobody Knows I'm a Dog is a full-length play about six people who are unable to connect to other people IRL (in real life). They find the courage to socialize by joining a singles newsgroup on the Internet, taking comfort in knowing that they won't be seen. They all choose to hide behind lies and false personas to achieve their ultimate desire - connecting with other people - though it is these lies which keep them from connecting. This morality tale explores the notion that though people try to manufacture fantasy personas in cyberspace, their real personality eventually comes through.
The six people presented talk by posting to a Newsgroup on the Internet. Since they are all misrepresenting themselves, nobody is quite sure of each other. Present is a quote-spouting teenager, a middle-aged housewife who fancies herself a vixen, an uneducated sounding dullard with overactive hormones, a man posing as a woman, a curmudgeon who dislikes everybody but continues to talk to them, and a girl who simply feels she's unattractive.
A bit of a mystery ensues as each character begins to give themselves away until one of them blows everybody's cover, leaving them exposed and embarrassed.
Though the dialogue is often quite funny, the loneliness of the six characters is quite serious as they feel they have to manufacture false personas in order to have people talk to them on the Internet. The play moves through the various facets of the Internet -- Usenet Newsgroups, E-mail and Internet Relay Chat -- as it follows the progression and quick breakdown of their charades.
Nobody Knows I'm a Dog has been quoted as being "... one of the defining plays of the 90's."
The play gets its title from a cartoon by Peter Steiner which appeared in The New Yorker Magazine, July 1993, in which a dog is seated at a computer, telling another dog "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Click here for an excerpt from the December 14, 2000 interview with Peter Steiner from the New York Times.
Stage and Screen Book Club has just published Nobody Knows I'm a Dog in their anthology entitled Incisions, edited by Marvin Kaye. The anthology of award-winning plays is available only to Stage and Screen Book Club members.
Nobody Knows I'm a Dog is readily available for production! If you are a theater group or company and you're looking to produce something unique and proven (not to mention EASY), drop me an E-mail (be sure to remove the "NOSPAM" part) -- I'll send you a full script and we'll talk! It's even now available in Bulgarian and Catalan!
Last updated 6/18/03