When Jesse, an easily distracted nine-year-old, is diagnosed with ADHD,his mother seeks answers from a slew of specialists—allergists,psychologists, psychiatrists, homeopath­s—as well as neighbors, family,and friends. This controversial comedy asks whether genetics, living in a world of sensory overload,vaccinations, diet, and the environment, cause or contribute to ADD andADHD.  Are kids too readily diagnosed and overly medicated? And is itOK to laugh when discussing one of society’s greatest present-daybarriers?  

"Distracted" is itself a distracted look at the torment and disruptionthat ADHD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder), formerly known asADD, creates in upper middle-class families in Southern California.After two hours debating the nature and treatment of the disorder,during which playwright Lisa Loomer throws a moderately entertainingbarrage of comic barbs at everybody who ventures onstage (and some whodon't), as well as at the media distractions of modern society, Loomerconcludes that it is all much simpler than she has made it seem.

Andwhile the play takes aim at deserving targets, including the medicalprofession, the pharmaceutical industry and George W. Bush, itsinterest in any real emotional depth is signaled by the fact that themain character appears onstage for less than 10 minutes.

    "Lisa Loomer has a penchant for zeroing in on the issues that obsess upper middle-class America…"  — The Orange County Register

Lisa Loomer is a playwright and screenwriter who has also worked as an actress and stand-up comic. She is best known for her play The Waiting Room,in which three women from different time periods meet in a moderndoctor's waiting room, each suffering from the effects of their varioussocieties' cosmetic body modification practices (foot binding, corsetry, and breast implantation). She also co-wrote the screenplay for the film Girl Interrupted. Loomer is an alum of the New Dramatists and was a 1985 playwright-in-residence at the Intar Theatre in New York City. Many of her plays deal with the experiences of Latinos and Hispanic-Americans, and with various aspects of contemporary family life.

Loomer has won the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award (in 1994 for The Waiting Room), the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the The Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award, a Back Stage West Garland Award for Playwriting (in 2003 for Living Out), the Imagen Awardfor positive portrayals of Latinos in all media, and American TheatreCritics Association Steinberg New Play Award (in 1995 for The Waiting Room and in 1999 for Expecting Isabel.) She won the Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play in 1999 for Expecting Isabel. ]She was also the recipient of 2 grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and one from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.