←Recommendations of PRACTICE HOUSE

Hilarious & heartbreaking in equal measure. Definitely DARK, but not without hope! It was an honor to get to play Jennie Claire in two different readings. I could see how much fun it would be as an actor to get to delve into these complex, fun, juicy roles!

A fascinating, terrifying, and thought-provoking story about the reverberations of oppression even in the most confined spaces. Although this darkly funny play only has one setting, it makes the reader think about how the enforced gender roles impacts all of us, perhaps most especially our children. Carnes's characters both play into and buck against the system, creating an intricate interplay of the ensemble cast. Great roles for women, and an important play in the ever-growing genre of speculative theatre.

I worked with Rachael as a dramaturg on this play for Mid-America Theater Conference's Plays in Progress series in 2020. It is a wonderfully wrought play about young women confronting (or refusing to) their "place" in a dystopian world that Rachel describes as "what my grandmother would talk like if she were on crack". This play has great roles for young women and would be perfect to produce in a college setting (as well as a professional setting- ALL of the settings).

An impressive work of speculative fiction by Carnes. As a fan of the genre, I particularly love how the play's environment is hermetically sealed, yet glimpses of the outside creep in for some deliberately paced, full-scale world-building that gradually introduces us to this bleak future. I can't fail to mention the language. The dialogue mixes current and older slang with poetic evocations for a rhythmic language that is unique and beautiful to contemplate and that absolutely demands to be read out loud. Shades of "Handmaid's Tale" yet startlingly original in technique and vision.

Although Carnes's main themes are clear — the subjugation of women and the resulting distortion of their human potential — there is much that breaks the boundaries of the conventional and will challenge both audiences and producers. Ostensibly set in the 1930s, characters also speak frequently in the language of today, to suggest how far we haven't come. There's a great role for the malevolent, Nurse Ratched-like Miss Van Rose, whose every self-satisfied pronouncement is clearly *wrong.* Which doesn't prevent Carnes from having great fun creating the character, especially the variety of epithets Rose uses to address her captive brood.

Rachael Carnes presents a searingly comic dystopia and then asks "can we keep from getting here?" A question that proves to have no easy answer. The play includes moments of wit and tenderness as well as horrifying cruelty. The narrative never lags and builds suspensefully through a startling revelation to an ambiguous conclusion that only reinforces the work's chilling impact.

Carnes play had me laughing even on the title page! Read it, and you’ll understand. The comedy became increasingly disturbing as this world (which is at the same time a past and futuristic one) resonated clearly with today’s political landscape. I felt such enormous dread for what would become of these characters and the ending doesn’t disappoint. It’s a wonderfully weird play, complete with symbols! And it’s one that will stick with me long after reading it. PRACTICE HOUSE is evidence of a playwright who is brilliant and hilarious and fearless.

Like many great dystopias, this piece so elegantly illustrates how oppressive philosophical and political relics from what we like to think of as "the past" are still alive and well in in the world today! "Practice House" is a fascinating premise populated with unique and sympathetic characters. It is consistently surprising from the first jarring moment we realize this strangely historical world is not as it seems, all the way to the thrilling climax! I hope to see this theatrical and what I imagine to be visually compelling play developed and produced soon.

I attended a reading of this play in NYC this afternoon; Carnes’ premise and approach is fascinating, and it builds steadily to a final 20 minutes that pack quite a dystopian punch.

This play takes on the horror of how women lose their desires and agency as society presses them to become wives and mothers. The practice house setting is strange, disturbing, and not as buried in the past as we might hope. PRACTICE HOUSE is a play that feels viscerally frightening and relevant as more and more women's rights fall into question.