←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.

I had the opportunity to see a reading of this play at the Conch Shell Reading Series, an ambitious play tackling the questions of ownership, identity and family in a uniquely different genre Neo-Western. Nelson's roots can be felt through the characters who happen to also be women, a serious inquiry into inclusivity of the misfits in America.

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.

The spirit of Nelson Diaz-Marcano's writing is one of its most valuable attributes. With bold fervor, humor, and awareness, 'MISFIT, AMERICA' assembles one of the most original cast of characters you've ever come across in an altogether classical, obscure, and provocatively familiar setting for a modern, sagaciously American adventure. An alternately wry and heartfelt commentary sets up a plot tackling the complexities of capitalism, free-market transactions, usage of natural resources, doomsday diplomacy, race and gender relations, non-traditional families, community organizing, etc.; all of it filtered through a Neo-Western lens. Moreover, it hinges on an impressively well-written, and timeless coming-of-age story.

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.