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Recommendations

Recommendations

  • Robert Weibezahl:
    3 May. 2022
    With raw honesty – and a bit of heartfelt music – Saari deftly explores the opioid crisis in rural America through the timely story of one extended family turned upside down. Secrets and lies, resentments, poor choices, self-deception – all plays out with a comfortable familiarity that makes the harsh reality all the more painful to acknowledge. The emotions are very real, as is the surprising amount of humor, which, as in life, becomes a mechanism for survival.
  • Andrew Gall:
    8 Sep. 2021
    My life was negatively impacted by a loved's one's addiction to opioids. RAIN ON FIRE frames the conflict accurately while capturing the pathos and heartbreak that comes with it. The characters in this work are honestly drawn and likable. The play offers no easy answers and avoids sentimentality and the pay off is a powerful and meaningful experience.
  • Suzan Fete:
    28 Dec. 2020
    I'm so pleased to recommend this lovely play. 'RAIN ON FIRE was unanimously chosen as a resident play in Renaissance Theaterworks' 2019 annual BR!NK New Play Festival.
    Without preaching or relying on stereotypes, the play illuminates rural America's opioid crisis.  Focusing on one family's struggles, Saari uses humor, music and well-drawn characters to tell a moving story about loss and forgiveness. 
  • Talk Back Theatre:
    8 Dec. 2020
    Talk Back Theatre is please to endorse 'RAIN ON FIRE, winner of our 2020 Playwriting Prize. This play stood out to us in a sea of hundreds as an example of a play that grapples with challenging issues while remaining, at its core, a story about people. Delicately balancing humor and grief, seriousness and playfulness, expectations and surprises, 'RAIN ON FIRE engages the audience through a cast of genuinely real people, exploring the strengths and weaknesses of their character and their connections to one another.
  • Cheryl Bear:
    23 Aug. 2020
    A genuine and moving play on the struggle and impact addiction has on a family. Heartfelt and well done.
  • Ryan Bernsten:
    23 Jun. 2020
    A lovely, sensitive meditation on loss at the hands of the opioid epidemic. Saari creates an effortless sense of place in Michigan's UP and writes characters who we like and root for, even when they show flashes of intolerance. This play refreshingly illiterates the pains and hopes that exist in forgotten parts of America.
  • Rachael Carnes:
    17 Oct. 2019
    A stunning play, penned with delicate brush strokes, that combine into a beautiful, temperate piece of art about a challenging world so many people face. Saari's voice is so clear, her characters right in that sweet spot: Broken but likable. The structure of this play interlocks effectively, effortlessly. It's an emotional arc, told with great restraint. So glad to read this writer - looking forward to reading more of her work soon.