I had great expectations for this play and it did not disappoint. It’s a tasty minced pie of a penny dreadful made up of ingredients ground together from large chunks of Dickens, smaller bits of Austen and Brecht, leavening by Sondheim and Bart, and a mysterious seasoning only revealed at the very end, all of it wrapped up in DeVita’s erudite, wicked, shameless sense of humor. There are lines that literally and literarily had me gasping in delight. Reader and audiences alike are sure to Lovett.

How can I have not read this play before?! My admiration of Doug's work has grown with every piece I've read but this one is just fabulous! Taking classical characters and whisking them up with his own brilliant imagination and this is what is produced! I read the piece tucked on the sofa with a cup of tea but it needs to be experienced live to give it the atmosphere it will undoubtedly provide. As a British playwright, I think Nell needs to make her hop across the pond! Truly brilliant work.

In "Nell Dash," Doug DeVita mashes up "Sweeney Todd," "Oliver Twist," "Great Expectations," "The Beggar's Opera," and doubtless more to create a dazzlingly intricate, rapidly paced melodrama-cum-farce centered around the exploits of its irrepressible eponymous heroine. Do you need to know all these allusions to enjoy the work? Not really, since what matters most is the legerdemain of DeVita's plotting and comic timing, something all theatergoers will find a source of delight.