HCM City (VNS) — Gruesome Playground Injuries, a 90-minute play by American playwright and 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist Ravij Joseph, will be staged in HCM City later this month.

The play, a modern love story about Doug and Kayleen who met at the age of 8 on the playground, takes place over a 30-year period.

Directed by Peter O'Neill, the work stars Jaime Zuniga as Doug and Siree Riewpaiboon as Kayleen.

Nicaragua-based Zuniga became involved in the Asian theatre scene with a role in The Importance of Being Earnest in HCM City in 2011. He relocated to Thailand in 2013 and co-founded Peel the Limelight, an English-language theatre group.

Riewpaiboon, a graduate of Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, has performed roles in Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour and Charles Busch's Vampire Lesbians of Sodom. She is pursuing a Master of Arts in dramatic arts at the university.

Gruesome Playground Injuries premiered at the Alley Theatre in Texas in 2009. Its off-Broadway production opened at the Second Stage Theatre in New York City in 2011.

The HCM City show will be presented in English at the Cargo Bar.

Performances begin at 7.30pm on April 22, 23 and 25. The venue is at 7 Nguyen Tat Thanh Street in District 4.

Tickets purchased in advance cost VND300,000, and are available from www.ticketbox.vn. Tickets at the door are VND350,000. — VNS