←Recommendations of The Hub

The theatricality of this play is everything for me!!! Dwyer has done a fantastic job of bringing online life to the stage and forcing us to confront some hard truths about our history of being connected on the web. Love the conversations happening here!!

This play is so fricking millenial, raw and fun AF. Allyson takes us to cyber land and captures how it really is it's own world and the darkness of being young and naive in dat world. I love how the play has such a beating heart underneath and captures young, lightly creepy love in a unique way. This also is so zoomable-do it now!

There was a time when you could exist in a cyber reality on the web, but with these false identities were we better off? A fascinating exploration of the benefits, dangers and value of connection not based in reality. Well done.

In "The Hub," Allyson Dwyer creates a compelling theatricalization of vintage internet culture when online connection was still in its nascent phases. Dwyer's vision for how an old chat room might translate to the stage, and how online personas might exist in relation to real life humans is both clear and provides room for directors, performers, and designers to leave their mark on this piece. I so appreciated how the dramatic action steadily climbed at an irregular but driving pace, and loved the nuanced exploration of identity, relationships, connection, sexuality, and alienation. It was truly human and affecting!

I was easily taken in by the nostalgia quality of revisiting 1999, but Dwyer's gifts are clearly not limited to evoking this particular place and time in cyberspace. The characters are very engaging, and we immediately feel for them as they try to negotiate their desires and desperate insecurities. We see the Hub as both refuge and prison, just like all insular communities. Dwyer's feel for the specialized dialogue is instinctive and never feels contrived. It reads briskly on the page and would be very interesting in a staged version.

This is a fantastic play that explores the early days of the internet. Dwyer writes her characters with such depth that you can't help but be engaged by all of them, even the ones who aren't as savory. On a deeper level, this horrifying, hilarious, poignant, and intimate play is about people on the edge of something. The play takes place in 2000, when Y2K paranoia was overtaking the world, but it's also about people on the edge of something that will soon become a dominant cultural force. Highly recommended!