'What I admire most is that his plays are beautifully well made, economical, sharp and coherent. He's not a misanthrope, but he's in pursuit of why people behave as badly as they do along with having a great compassion for them. That's an unusual and interesting combination.'—Tony Kushner, on John Patrick Shanley

When a troubled but gifted boy from the South Bronx finds himself shipped off to a private school in New Hampshire, the adjustment to the alien environment will lead to his ultimate dissolution or redemption. Teachers in the affluent institution do not know what to make of the new boisterous student, though the challenge really lies in his self-perception. Like his most celebrated play, Doubt, the author has based this new work on his own personal experiences of growing up as a teenager in the South Bronx and his time spent at a prep school in New England. Shanley has created an elemental study of a young's man search for his place in the world.

John Patrick Shanley's plays include Outside Mullingar, Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Savage in Limbo, and Dirty Story, along with his "Church and State" trilogy, Doubt, Defiance, and Storefront Church. For his play Doubt, he received both the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He has nine films to his credit, including the five-time Oscar-nominated Doubt, and Moonstruck, which received the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The Writers Guild of America awarded Shanley the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award in Writing.