←Recommendations of MISFIT, AMERICA

What a gorgeous piece of work. An epic and beautiful play that incorporates magic realism alongside the mythos of the American West and mixes the poetic with the profane and surprises with every turn. Diaz-Marcano highlights characters that are seldom seen on stage and they are so so welcome here. I loved getting to spend time with each and every one of them.

Big, sprawling, and epic, this play is amazing. It’s incredible to have a play that’s a LATINOS western, there’s so much magic and storytelling that’s unique to latinidad, and while he creates such a big world, the characters never feel overshadowed. They live, struggle and bleed for us. A director/designers dream.

Diaz-Marcano is so at home in presenting magical realism. He's equally at ease working with under-represented voices, be they Latinx, Native American, or trans. Misfit, America is a tour de force tale that turns the western genre on its head and inside out. He shows an intimate empathy for his protagonists and his characters speak with sharp dialogue that is both elevated and real.

YES, THIS PLAY!! This play is remarkable work of art with dialogue that leaps off the page and a myth that is beautifully and painfully woven at the core of a breathtaking story. I look forward to watching this play develop and hope to be front row of a production of it - soon.

This play is an absolutely brilliant blend of realism and fantasy. A play that is in conversation with the history of our nation and how the non-white people that built it are portrayed in art. This unique take on the Western is both epic in scale and so intimate with wonderful roles for actors of color and folks in the LGBTQIA community. We need writers like Nelson Diaz-Marcano who are willing to take on and redefine the American theatre canon.

I was fortunate to attend a superb staged reading in New York City on May 31, 2019, of this superb play. Both violent and lyrical, "Misfit" gives voice to the most down-trodden and disenfranchised members of the American family - and pits them against the white supremacist who ultimately dies in a bloodbath near the end. But there is hope too for the play's sympathetic lovers, Támit and Tragedy (Lucia). Perhaps the most remarkable character is Roberta, the community's cook and earth-mother, but Diaz-Marcano is equally adept at capturing the twisted attitudes of the supremacist Chip in a chilling monologue.

This play. This writer. I don't even know what to say, it's just such a tour de force. I hear echoes of Kushner and Ruhl, in the confident slips and slides between realities, the way Diaz-Marcano takes us by the hand and says, "Jump with me? Okay?" and we go. His work has big, bold vision, like a 2019 José Rivera, or José Cruz González. But if this play demonstrates anything, it's the singularity of Nelson's voice. His play world is completely built, structured and accessible, yet like the masters, Nelson's work always anchors itself in our imagination and empathy.

I'm a sucker for Neo-Westerns and magical realism, and this play has both!
Fantastically plotted and full of quirky, diverse and colorful characters who ask some very serious, very necessary questions(and point out one or two Hard Truths about contemporary society) before the story comes to a close. This a beautifully moving piece of theatre that deserves production--the sooner the better.

Tautly plotted and populated with complex and vivid characters, Misfit America grabbed hold of me at the top and didn’t let go. Its depiction of the collapse of the Western-mythos resonated on both the narrative and cultural planes (as well as the literal plains). The play is also full of wit and both playful and terrifying use of theatrical devices. Drumbeats and shadow are deployed to dazzling effect. And all of this supports a moving exploration of the struggle to define family and identity for ourselves in a world loathe to allow either.

Diaz-Marcano continues exploring his themes of identity and community and his concerns with how past, history and mythology shapes us, especially in the aftermath of environmental destruction, real or imaginary, and how that destruction affects survival and culture. Who are we, what is community and country, what is family and love when so much is lost? The setting is Slab City in a toxic wasteland by a lake populated by a cast of misfits -- reminds me of Butterworth's Jersualem. It's violent like Letts' Killer Joe, but beautiful with surrealist splashes that Diaz-Marcano is perfect at. Produce this!