Set entirely in the Greenwich Village apartment of celebrated New York author, Ruth Steiner, the play follows the shifting dynamic between Ruth, an aging, revered author, and Lisa Morrison, her starstruck graduate student and protégée. Over the course of six years, Ruth mentors Lisa, eventually revealing intimate details of her youth. What begins as a straightforward student-teacher tutorial, evolves into a complicated professional relationship and then into a true friendship, blurring the boundaries between fact and fiction, and ultimately sparking a bitter clash concerning intellectual property, the morality of biographical fiction, and who has the right to claim a story.

Collected Stories was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1997, playing Off-Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club with Maria Tucci and Debra Messing, before transferring to Broadway’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre in 2010, featuring Linda Lavin and Sarah Paulson in the roles of Ruth and Lisa. The role of Ruth has also been performed by Uta Hagen and Helen Mirren. The role of Lisa has been played by Samantha Mathis.