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Recommendations

Recommendations

  • Glynn Cosker:
    15 Jun. 2021
    I saw a production of this play at Andy's Summer Playhouse in NH, and it was fantastic. The writing is crisp, poignant, and REAL. I was very moved by the performances I saw - which speaks volumes for the playwright. Heart-wrenching, salient, forceful, compelling and captivating writing. Well done. Seeing this play inspired me to write my own.
  • Cheryl Bear:
    20 Apr. 2021
    A powerful look at the norm of a school shooting in this country. How do you cope in the aftermath? Riveting and well done.
  • Chandler Hubbard:
    3 Feb. 2021
    Distressing and disturbing but ultimately human. Does not try to explain, like so many of our own "manifestos" on why people choose violence; instead, it gives credence to the quiet, mundane nature of seeking answers.
  • Brynn Hambley:
    29 Sep. 2020
    This play is the perfect example of an artistic work that is heartbreaking and includes genuine and well rounded characters while speaking up about this epidemic of violence at the same time. It's not telling you what to think in any way--but it paints a clear picture about what this kind of violence does not only to society at large, but to the people closest to the "blast". I also love that there are three very nuanced roles for women over thirty! I will be covering it on ep 6 of my podcast, "Play-Mates"!
  • Stephanie Alison Walker:
    27 Aug. 2020
    This is one of those plays that I know will stay with me for the rest of my life. I'm a mom to two young boys and man does Barclay get to the heart of a mother's deepest fears. I feel cracked wide open after reading this brilliant play. Ripe Frenzy explores the devastation dealt a mother of a school mass shooter in a way I've never seen and with such complexity and tenderness, it is absolutely tragic. I could go on and on about how brilliant Barclay is, but I am running out of space.
  • National New Play Network:
    21 Jan. 2019
    RIPE FRENZY by Jennifer Barclay received a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere. The partnering NNPN Member Theaters were New Repertory Theatre (Watertown, MA), Synchronicity Theatre (Atlanta, GA), and Greenway Court Theatre (Los Angeles, CA).
  • Emma Goldman-Sherman:
    25 Jun. 2018
    This is a brilliant play that uses a tech of Wilder's Our Town to dismantle all our notions of American life as we might like it to be and replaces it with what we are all living among right now, the awful possibility of more tragedy. As the mother of a 15 year old son in high school, I have to say that Ripe Frenzy is a terrifying read that is also an immensely satisfying play.
  • Shaun Leisher:
    18 Mar. 2018
    This is a brilliant play that needs to be done everywhere especially in the political climate we find ourselves in. The issue of high school mass shooting is explored through a unique and critical perspective as we try and make sense of why these incidents occur and what happens to the loved ones of the victims and the perpetrators that are left to pick up the pieces. Barclay uses a highly theatrical medium to full effect and forces humanity to sit together and face ugly truths.
  • Donna Gordon:
    1 Oct. 2017
    "Ripe Frenzy" is a painful look at the American tragedy of mass school shootings. In America, this crime has terrified the young and adult alike, time after time, shown in media projections blending the bizarre and the brutally realistic. Jennifer's play is also a media projection, in fact it uses the Go Pro, to describe the details of a son's entry into the annals of youthful depravity. There are no excuses here for the crime, but, rather, a realistic depiction of parental and societal disbelief that this could ever happen. The confusions and misunderstandings are blatantly clear.
  • Hallie Palladino:
    11 Sep. 2017
    I had the pleasure of seeing the OPC workshop of Ripe Frenzy which ranges from brilliantly funny to bone chilling. Barclay's disquieting play tackles the question: how can a parent continue to love a child who has done the unthinkable? A beautiful meditation on maternal love, friendship and gun culture in America, Ripe Frenzy is also a clever commentary on the way America has seized on Wilder's version of who we are, often willfully misunderstanding the project of Our Town, perhaps the most American of American dramas, which like this play, undertakes to expose our cultural blind spots.

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