←Recommendations of Tracks (or, The People Who Live Here)

Life on the tracks is perhaps the only thing worse than life on the wrong side of the tracks. John Patrick Bray doesn't provide the audience a happy ending in the gritty and beautifully written TRACKS. He also wisely doesn't delete the good little moments in life from his tale of struggles of young adults(?) coping with circumstances that provide little wiggle room imagining a brighter future ahead. It's simultaneously real and surreal and makes for good theatre - it packs an emotional punch. There are so many moments of opportunity for theatrical magic. Excellent work.

Tracks is gut-wrenching. Bray has created a world on the banks of the Hudson sought as a refuge by local teens but that becomes the site of tragedy. The characters are complex but fully fleshed out and compelling. Tracks is spellbinding, heartbreaking, magical, incredibly theatrical, stunning in its impact.

A powerful, shattering work. The train metaphor is well served because one constantly senses it barreling down on these characters in its own inevitable way. There is so much of humanity in this piece contrasted with the inhumanity of the "corporate machine" that I was left in deep thought about the ideas contained within for a good time after completing my reading. Bray brings a unique and palpable rhythm to a terrifying and exhilarating modern mythology that ultimately provides a glimpse into a vivid, startling, and, yes, even sometimes wistfully joyful time shared by these fragile human engines.

Wonderful and terrible and real, Tracks balances on the edge of a the cliff between dark, grim adolescent reality and absurdist mythology, delving into the mistakes we make, the people and places we come to love, and the legends we leave behind. Rich, complex characters, heartfelt conversation and more than a few laughs fill the spaces between the rush of the oncoming train. Magnificent.

Small-towns are rumoured to be places where 'everyone knows everyone'. Well by the end of reading "Tracks" I felt I knew so much about John's young characters and how their lives are shaped by addiction, the complexity of relationships and by tragedy. The play is loaded with heart-wrenching moments when I shed tears from reading! So there isn't a doubt in my mind that, given the chance to take to a stage, this play would have audiences being amused and devastated through this story of youth and the impact life has upon it. Truly wonderfully written!

Bray writes about some pretty heavy topics, but does so in a way that intrigues a reader, and creates characters one can only feel for. Bray's characters exist in a world that is so theatrical, yet so real. I would definitely reckoned this play. I was invested in the characters and their journeys from the beginning. The play is beautifully dark and heart breaking.

This is a folk story. Or is it a ghost story? In the tales people tell of us, do we become myth or ghost? What's the difference if we haunt ourselves before our time? The world has always been lonely and cruel. As capitalism rolls its ugly head through our lives, are we really to blame for the few ways we can find to cope? People make mistakes all the time. Tragedy happens every day. And it hurts. Oh, it hurts.

But this isn't a ghost story. Because it dances. The system and world is cruel. But still, there's dancing.

A true American tragedy of the effects of the opioid crisis and economic displacement on a group of adolescents and, by extension, the larger community. The play also addresses the nature and making of myths and how personal catastrophes become larger than life in the retelling. All-in-all, a powerful and indelible work.

There are plays that are designed for a specific audience. This is not one of those plays. This is a must-read, must-see, must-feel, play. The characters that John Patrick Bray and so three Demensional that it feels like you know them. The humor. The humor slayed me at times and then Bray makes you feel guilty for laughing at the dark humor in brilliantly purposed moments. This play has so many amazing theatrical moments. Incredible. This play is designed for every audience. I will never forget reading this play. I was moved.

In this beautifully crafted evocation of lost youth, John Patrick Bray has captured its extreme closeness and bitter rivalries, its good intentions and terrible decisions, and the secret abandoned places we gathered to console each other with tales of the truly lost.