←Recommendations of a break beat play

HUGE fan of this play, which I got to see performed at Mixed Blood in Minneapolis. This language-forward piece is smart, provocative, and unforgettable; it's an incredible showcase of three actors and invites imaginative design and staging opportunities. Could see this play in theaters of all sizes/scales! Audiences that like political plays and heightened text will love this piece.

The language in HYPE MAN flows like your favorite hip hop song. It hits you on all different levels. Just reading it, you can imagine/feel the beats and rhythms woven into it. The characters are complex and memorable. The play structure is tight. This is the kind of play that resonates with all types of audiences. Hope to see it produced one day. It's that good.

Hype Man grabs you from the first moment and weaves as complicated a set of relationships as you can imagine between three clear, passionate characters whose personal, political, and artistic selves move in and out of connection, alliance, conflict. Goodwin gives all three characters space and time to breathe, to find independence from one another, their own truths, and a way to use art to bring their truths back together. It's brilliant, compelling work all the way.

HYPE MAN is a play that needs to be produced everywhere. It can be done on a budget and in unusual space... but this is a play that speaks to this moment and you should take the opportunity to use a live event to speak to the moment whenever possible.

The actual text is layered and character driven, enabling the audience make the alchemic leaps rather than the writer explaining them all to you. The beats are good and the rhymes credible so nothing ever lands as cornball in the way that faux-urbanism can.

So engaging and well written. The characters draw you in and you're able to cringe and feel along with all of them. The dialogue is superb, and the play never holds a punch. I caught it as a reading, and would love to see it fully produced.

Just saw this play at InterAct Theatre and it was really engaging and fun while dealing with the very important topic of ally-ship.

HYPE MAN is a non-stop ride. The dialogue is so tight and exacting. It's smart and hits the heart. Lines still stick in my brains, almost a year after reading it for the first time. I HIGHLY recommend.

This was such a fun read. It touches on important issues without being preachy and the musical energy just jumps off the page (why do more plays not incorporate rapping????). I want to see this come alive on stage badly.

Hype Man resonates empathy and a call to action with characters impossible to forget. Idris Goodwin is a voice for our generation.

Premiere Stages, the professional Equity theater in residence at Kean University, is pleased to recognize "Hype Man," by Idris Goodwin, as a semifinalist in the 2017 Premiere Stages Play Festival. "Hype Man" rose through a competitive selection process conducted by Premiere staff and an outside panel of theater professionals over the course of five months to be one of 18 semifinalists out of roughly 400 submissions to the Festival. The panel was particularly impressed by its searing urgency, its well-crafted characters, and the questions it poses about artists' responsibility to social justice. Our congratulations and thanks to Idris.