←Recommendations of Family Visitation (Ten Minute)

I didn't think a piece of fiction could make me so furious at a made up character as I am at Estelle in this play. Paul Donnelly creates vividly real people in a ten minute piece about trying to say goodbye to a loved one and not being able to because of "well-meaning" health care workers. The fact that she was able to get under my skin so easily about a character I've never met shows how well-written this piece is. Yes, I'm affected by this, but in a way only the best type of art can accomplish.

A devastating work that serves to remind us of the difficult period of the AIDS pandemic in the 80s. Even well-meaning people could do things that had far-reaching consequences.

FAMILY VISITATION is an absolutely gut wrenching play! Paul Donnelly brings us right into horrors of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the atrocities committed by those who were supposed to be there to help. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

The heartbreaking inability to let go of discrimination in the face of great pain is well captured. Well done.

I was lucky enough to see this play -twice!- at Theatre Odyssey’s 10- minute play festival. A heartbreaking look at the cruelty of narrow definitions of family and the mindsets that give people permission to discriminate. A play that is both universal in nature and deeply personal- which is the best kind of play. Read it and produce it!

Here Donnelly returns to one of his favorite themes: the arrogance and cruelty of a mindset that assumes "family" connections outweigh those we have chosen for ourselves, that are based on something stronger than blood but are all too easily dismissed. This play is a gut punch that will leave you angry, or sad, or more likely both.

God this play! It doesn't matter how many times I consume media about the impact of AIDS, it always hits hard. Paul Donnelly does something different here. It's very easy for these kinds of plays to get weighted down in depression and morality; while there are the hints of those in FAMILY VISITATION, Donnelly never lets it get in the way of the dramatic action onstage. His characters are fully-fleshed and engaged and it's a heartbreaking treat to see how it all plays out. #PlaywrightPlug