This Is Our Youth

This Is Our Youth
Michael Cera in a March 2012 production staged at the Sydney Opera House
Written by	Kenneth Lonergan
Characters	Dennis, Warren, Jessica
Date premiered	October 26, 1996 (1996-10-26)
Place premiered	Intar Theatre, New York City

This Is Our Youth is a play by American dramatist and screenwriter Kenneth Lonergan, which premiered Off-Broadway in 1996 and on Broadway in 2014.

The play takes place in Dennis Ziegler's apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in March 1982. Dennis's friend Warren Straub, a dejected 19-year-old, has just been kicked out of his house and stolen $15,000 from his abusive lingerie-tycoon father. Dennis, the more wily and domineering of the two, spends some of the money on cocaine, hoping to sell it to a friend for much more. Jessica Goldman, an "anxiously insightful" fashion student, comes over and Warren hopes that he can use the money to entice her into bed.

The play explores timeless issues of adolescence and maturity, as well as the Reagan Era in which it is set: the characters feel adrift in 1980s-style materialism.

This Is Our Youth premiered as a one-act titled Betrayal by Everyone in 1993 at the Met in a festival of short plays.

Originally produced by The New Group, the play opened Off-Broadway at the Intar Theatre on October 26, 1996 and closed on November 24, 1996 after 22 performances. Directed by Mark Brokaw, the cast featured Josh Hamilton as Dennis, Mark Ruffalo as Warren, and Missy Yager as Jessica. It again played Off-Broadway in a Second Stage revival at the McGinn/Cazale Theatre, from November 3, 1998 to May 2, 1999, with the original cast, except for Mark Rosenthal as Dennis. It transferred to the Douglas Fairbanks Theatre.

In the West End, it played at the Garrick Theatre from March 1 to April 20, 2002, produced by Phil Cameron for Background, Clare Lawrence and Anna Waterhouse for Out of the Blue (for and on behalf of Back to Blue Limited). The cast starred Jake Gyllenhaal, Hayden Christensen, and Anna Paquin.