An indoor soccer field somewhere in suburban America. Winter. Saturdays.

#11
Midfield. Brainy, morbid, budding elitist, thoughtful; smart and she knows it, watches documentaries, columnist for high-school newspaper; both of her parents are psychiatrists; a bit of a know-it-all, she enjoys policing and correcting her teammates.

#25
Captain. Classic ex-coach’s daughter; she keeps the team on track, even if she’d rather join in on the fun, and loves a good pep talk; a hard worker, a good leader; emotionally closed off.

#13
Midfield. Class clown, jock, a bit of a bro, her older brother’s a stoner, and they definitely play FIFA; into her wackiness; refuses to take anything too seriously, she lives to rib her teammates, which can get her in hot water.

#46
Bench. The new girl, awkward, different; homeschooled, she lives in a yurt with her new age travel writer mom; her nomadic life has left her with idiosyncratic passions (bird watching) and a lack of social skills, but she doesn’t seem to mind; extraordinary soccer skills.

#2
Defense. Innocent, unlucky, kind, skinny; sweet, naive, sheltered, she considers herself a nice and humble person; she is a member of her church’s youth group and of Amnesty International, along with the oldest sister and caretaker of her many younger siblings; has an eating disorder; has suffered multiple concussions; doesn’t like talking bad about others.

#7
Striker. Too cool for school; sarcastic; the child of a bad divorce, her lawyer father owns a ski house, and she’s dating a college boy–they’re very much in love; has problems with authority.

#14
Midfield. #7’s insecure sidekick; just switched to contacts; she’s modeling herself on the cool girl, #7, but begins to rebel after a ski weekend gone wrong; her mother is Soccer Mom, very involved in her life.

#8
Defense. “Omigosh,” plays dumb, goofy, giggly, excitable, a crier, a dreamer; obsessed with “The Lord of the Rings” and making it to nationals in Miami; her mom died when she was ten, and she never talks about it; she lives in a self-inflicted state of innocence.

#00
Goalie. Intense performance anxiety, social anxiety, perfectionist, high achiever; she has a 4.9 GPA, is Editor in Chief of the high-school newspaper, plays cello; before every game, she stops talking and vomits; militant.

SOCCER MOM
Manic with grief, warm, generous, she is a suburban woman who prides herself on her involvement in her teenager’s lives; never misses a game.

Sarah DeLappe is the playwright of The Wolves (Pulitzer Prize finalist; Relentless Award; Lortel, Outer Critics Circle nominations) which premiered at The Playwrights Realm, following an engagement with New York Stage and Film, and development with Clubbed Thumb. She is currently an LCT3 Writer in Residence and a member of Ars Nova Play Group. Other fellowships and developmental support include The MacDowell Colony, The Ground Floor, Page One Fellowship at The Playwrights Realm, SPACE on Ryder Farm, and Sitka Fellows Program. Education: MFA, Brooklyn College. Her idea for the play came from when she played soccer and other sports as a kid, but never played at the elite level as the girls who are on the Wolves. She quit sports when she was fourteen so she could do theater and act in plays. There wasn’t a soccer team at her high school so, in a way, this was a wish fulfillment for her: to write about the team that she was never a part of in high school. She reached a point in college where she felt disenchanted by her own abilities and limitations as an actor, but also at the roles that were available for women, especially young women. She took a playwriting class with Paula Vogel and felt like everything about the [theater’s] attention to “liveness” and actually being in the room – the way that it forces audience members to pay attention to the ways we’re not paying attention in our day-to-day life – was really attractive to her. Other works include writing the screenplay for the black comedy slasher film Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022) and co-writing an episode for the HBO miniseries The Heroes’ Banquet (2024).