←Recommendations of Koalas

"Koalas" is a delightfully weird and warm-hearted dramedy populated with truly unique and deftly rendered characters. Cox spins a compelling story propelled in many ways by Ray, while also giving satisfying arcs to every other character in the piece (Theo the koala included). Nate is an wonderfully complex and nuanced character--always a treat when a writer gives young people that level of depth. A real sense of the visual, spatial, and aural landscape of this theatrical world is also incredibly clear from just the text itself. How I'd so love to see a production of this piece!

Sweet, comic, and heartbreaking! Made me happy to have read it! I really enjoyed the style - it feels quite original. Nice work!

I read this play at a table read over a year ago, and I'm still thinking about it. Everything I want a play to be.

I heard a reading of Koalas at the Something Marvelous Festival in one of its early incarnations and I was delighted and touched by the playwright's tender treatment of all these lovingly crafted characters. The play is a slow burn that sticks with you long after you hear it.

This play will melt your heart and remind you, whether you are a human, a koala, or a cicada how beautiful and difficult it is to be a part of the animal kingdom.

It is the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's pleasure to recommend J. Joseph Cox and their play Koalas as a finalist for our 2015 National Playwrights Conference. The play rose through a competitive, anonymous, multileveled selection process that took nearly nine months to execute. As one finalist out of hundreds of submissions, the strength of this play’s writing has allowed this work to prosper in such a competitive selection process.

Was lucky enough to hear KOALAS today. Though it was read by playwrights and not actors in a cold table reading, we were all taken with it from the first moment. The relationships are strong, honest and recognizable. I felt so much compassion for all the characters, especially Ray who struggles to be a man, a and a father while obsessively trying to fix his rifle, haunted by his younger self, and challenged by his 10 year old child Natalie who is asking to be Nate. Plus there is an escaped Koala who talks and sings! And it all works.