←Recommendations of The Colony

Stevensen’s gripping historical dramatization is nothing short of a fierce rallying cry. Bookended by generational victims of eugenics, “The Colony” gut-punches audiences throughout with harsh realities - illuminating the need for urgent discussions (and actions!) regarding reproductive freedom. Briskly paced and smartly written with three meaty roles for female performers, this play deserves your attention.

The thing about "historical drama" is it has a tendency to buckle under the weight of its own details, seldom sure whether it has anything to say or if it's just a preservation of interesting past events. Gina's play never has that problem, thrumming with prescience, care, and far-reaching relevance while also reevaluating and destabilizing our sense of history as it intersects with medical science, family, race, psychology, and legacy. After reading this piece years ago, its stirring heart and poignant drama keeps coming back to me.

This is an outstanding play, I had the pleasure of hearing this out loud and was hanging on every word. Stevensen has crafted a really unsettling and timely drama that is dynamic and extremely evocative. I cannot wait to see this on stage one day, hopefully before it's too late. Well done.

The Colony is a brilliantly unsettling play, a scary slow-drip indictment of a vast ideology that sees women's bodies as a means for the purposes of others. Gina Stevenson writes with such delicacy and heart that the grief and moral horror at the center of the story become all the more penetrating. It's a play that really comes and finds you where you live.

The Colony is the only play I know of about the eugenics movement, which attempted to systematically deny women who were poor, black, or disabled the right to reproduce. Gina's play refuses to place eugenics in the safe category of "ideas we don't believe anymore," asking us profound questions about why a woman's ability to reproduce on terms of her choosing is still so threatening in 2019.

Powerful imagery, powerful message. It's horrifying to contemplate that the events that sparked this play actually happened -- and continue to play out as politics determine the rights of others to access to and decisions on the fate on the female body. Stevensen masterfully takes the audience on a journey that spans decades. The gut-punch of the play's final moments should spark not only conversation, but also -- hopefully -- action.