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!

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.

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.