Deal Me Out

November, 2016. A close-knit board game group meets for its weekly game night in Oberon's father's garage with an uncomfortable "game" on the menu: kick Dez out. But echoes of the polarized world outside invade their sacred space, and no one is prepared to face the real problem, which threatens to flip the board on them all. Deal Me Out is a comic drama set inside the world of gamers.
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Deal Me Out

Recommended by

  • Nick Malakhow:
    29 Aug. 2019
    The residual casualties of the 2016 election--complicated or torn friendships and socio-political reprioritizing on an individual and group scale--are vividly on display here in engaging and nuanced characters. All of the characters are rendered with a subtle and fine paintbrush, and their personalities are illustrated so adeptly in their relationships to and way of engaging with gaming. The games and the characters relationships to them are skillfully handled metaphors! The twists and turns both make sense but are satisfyingly surprising. I love seeing the genesis and evolution of this social microcosm both in the past and present scenes.
  • Laura Neill:
    26 Apr. 2019
    The playwright takes a genuine look at how fractures that have always been there in friendships have broken wider open since the election and now can't be ignored... a painfully beautiful and well-crafted rendering of a seriously contemporary topic. The Huntington reading was great theatre. I'd be really excited to see this one produced.
  • Kevin Cirone:
    18 Mar. 2019
    A lovely, dark ensemble piece; a stark look at twenty-something outcasts whose interpersonal relationships are strained by forces geopolitical and personal. The flashback mechanic serves the character back stories well and the interweaving of gameplay rules is a nice counterbalance when applied to rule-defying personalities. Would love to see this produced.

Development History

  • Workshop
    ,
    Boston Playwrights' Theatre
    ,
    2020
  • Reading
    ,
    Huntington Theatre Company
    ,
    2019
  • Reading
    ,
    Huntington Theatre Company
    ,
    2018