←Recommendations of RAFETUS

This play hurts, in the best possibly ways - the kind of beautiful work that you think about days, weeks, months afterward. I never thought a play about two Yangtze turtles would make me cry but it really did. I highly recommend this play!!!

Lovely and sad work, inventive in structure, language and action, that excellently mixes the worlds of human and turtle at a level both realistic and magical all at once. Deals with moral questions while never being didactic -- everything is integrated into the characters and their actions. Eminently stageable.

This highly theatrical play tells the story of two Yangtze giant softshell turtles and the team of scientists who are trying desperately to keep this species from extinction. This beautiful and moving play presents morally complicated questions about animal nature and reproductive rights. I was thoroughly engaged with the story and the characters the whole time. I hope to see a production of this play soon.

It is the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's pleasure to recommend Ali Skye Bennet and their play Rafetus as a finalist for our 2017 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.