Left quad. Right quad. Lunge. A girls indoor soccer team warms up. From the safety of their suburban stretch circle, the team navigates big questions and wages tiny battles with all the vim and vigor of a pack of adolescent warriors. THE WOLVES is a portrait of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for nine American girls who just want to score some goals.

The Wolves is a one-act play by Sarah DeLappe. It premiered Off-Broadway at the Duke on 42nd Street in September 2016, produced by The Playwrights Realm. It centers on the experiences of high school girls through their weekly Saturday morning pre-game soccer warmups. The Wolves received the American Playwriting Foundation’s inaugural Relentless Award in 2015, and was a New York Times Critic’s Pick. The Economist reviewer wrote: “She has penned an absorbing portrait of female adolescence in The Wolves“. The play was a finalist in 2015-16 for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.^[1] The play won the 2017 Obie Award for Ensemble work. The play was a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The committee wrote: “For a timely play about a girls’ high school soccer team that illuminates with the unmistakable ping of reality the way young selves are formed when innate character clashes with external challenges.”