Tracks

by John Patrick Bray

It's 1998, and pill-popping siblings Jennie and Simian have a problem. Their favorite spot by the Hudson River is about to be closed off by AmTrain, which is planning a bullet train from NYC to Albany closing off access to the water for residents east of the Hudson. Lucky for them, Dapper Dan, the straight-edged kid in their group, will do anything for Jennie – inspire a letter writing campaign, get her drugs...

It's 1998, and pill-popping siblings Jennie and Simian have a problem. Their favorite spot by the Hudson River is about to be closed off by AmTrain, which is planning a bullet train from NYC to Albany closing off access to the water for residents east of the Hudson. Lucky for them, Dapper Dan, the straight-edged kid in their group, will do anything for Jennie – inspire a letter writing campaign, get her drugs, anything. As they plan, anthropomorphic manifestations appear around them – the Headless Horseman who must now wear an old computer monitor on his shoulders; Johnny Appleseed, who fills a candy machine near the tracks with Apple Jim Jims; the Voice of The Boy That Died; etc.; - however, these manifestations remain unseen until tragedy strikes, as the misfits attempt to disrupt an oncoming train by any means necessary. Tracks reminds us that we all become myth to those who look through the windows of a speeding passenger train as they imagine what life must be like under a Catskill moon.

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Tracks

Recommended by

  • Craig Houk: Tracks

    This play is first and foremost a masterclass in scriptwriting. Exquisite dialogue. And then Bray elevates it further with a compelling story and complex characters, all of them young and struggling in a world that's too big and too fast for them. If you read this and aren't horrified by the idea that this could have been you in your youth, and that you managed to somehow push through against all odds, then you, pal, lived a charmed life. Tracks is brutal but necessary. Put this on stage!

    This play is first and foremost a masterclass in scriptwriting. Exquisite dialogue. And then Bray elevates it further with a compelling story and complex characters, all of them young and struggling in a world that's too big and too fast for them. If you read this and aren't horrified by the idea that this could have been you in your youth, and that you managed to somehow push through against all odds, then you, pal, lived a charmed life. Tracks is brutal but necessary. Put this on stage!

  • Jacquelyn Floyd-Priskorn: Tracks

    The feelings we have when we're young are almost too much to bear. And sometimes the things that happen to us when we're young shouldn't be felt by anyone. These characters are doing their best to find magic in a world that is swiftly industrializing and crumbling at the same time. But myths and magic are distractions, and the darkness that hits these characters when they are trying hard not to feel is more painful than they could have imagined. This is a harsh, yet magical story. There are no answers. But this play is legendary.

    The feelings we have when we're young are almost too much to bear. And sometimes the things that happen to us when we're young shouldn't be felt by anyone. These characters are doing their best to find magic in a world that is swiftly industrializing and crumbling at the same time. But myths and magic are distractions, and the darkness that hits these characters when they are trying hard not to feel is more painful than they could have imagined. This is a harsh, yet magical story. There are no answers. But this play is legendary.

  • Sam Heyman: Tracks

    A play like a slow moving train wreck that inexorably hurtles toward its conclusion - but on the way, like in any of our lives, there is humor, beauty, humanity (warts and all). TRACKS by John Patrick Bray captures the melancholy and fading hope of adolescence and the ache of small town people — kids, mostly — unable to stop the changes that will inevitably tear the lives they know apart. This is a moving, dark, and magical piece of work.

    A play like a slow moving train wreck that inexorably hurtles toward its conclusion - but on the way, like in any of our lives, there is humor, beauty, humanity (warts and all). TRACKS by John Patrick Bray captures the melancholy and fading hope of adolescence and the ache of small town people — kids, mostly — unable to stop the changes that will inevitably tear the lives they know apart. This is a moving, dark, and magical piece of work.

View all 26 recommendations

Development History

  • Type Reading, Organization Playwrights Thriving, Year 2024
  • Type Residency, Organization The Wallace Theater, Year 2023
  • Type Reading, Organization The Skeleton Rep(resents), Year 2022
  • Type Reading, Organization Literary and Discourse Society, Year 2022
  • Type Reading, Organization AboutFACE Ireland, Year 2021
  • Type Reading, Organization Circle Ensemble , Year 2019
  • Type Reading, Organization Langhorne Players, Year 2019
  • Type Reading, Organization Classic City Fringe Festival, Year 2018

Awards

  • Open Call - Production Consideration
    New Relic Theatre
    Finalist
    2024
  • Script Contest (Production Consideration)
    Bottle Alley Theatre Company
    Finalist
    2023
  • Summer Reading Series
    Traguna Productions
    Semi-Finalist
    2019
  • 2019 Play Reading Series
    Wordsmyth Theatre Company
    Finalist
    2019