←Recommendations of The Place That Made You

Genuinely one of the most inspired and emotionally charged plays I have ever read. It deals with issues that hit very close to home, but in a way that is really unlike anything I've encountered. The writing is a dizzying mix of verse and prose that uses line breaks in a really engaging and masterful way. I can't wait to see it in the theater.

I recently had the privilege of watching Darcy work in person and was in awe of how they pack so much feeling and poetry into each play—and this is no exception. The word I keep coming back to is “aching.” Using a well-known Bible story as a foundation, Darcy explores such huge concepts as trauma and its aftermath, longing for a home, and impossible love in intimate ways through the oft-overlooked lens of working-class queer folks. I can’t wait to see this come alive on stage—and the rest of this epic cycle of plays as well!

This play is gorgeous - Darcy's dialogue is beautiful and these characters are so well-drawn and specific. The story is both epic and intimate and is incredibly moving by its end. I cannot wait to watch this play move through the world and to follow its development. Support this play, produce this play!

I was enraptured by this play mere pages in. Much like the whale, THE PLACE THAT MADE YOU is an absolute behemoth and - with its hauntingly beautiful dialogue and wonderfully ethereal atmosphere - swallows you whole. Equal parts expansive and intimate, it is simultaneously a biblical epic and an intensely deep character study. The people that Bruce has created here are handled with such grace and maturity that their interactions feel almost threateningly real, but trust me - you will not want to look away.

Darcy Parker Bruce’s highly theatrical “The Place That Made You” argues love can conquer death. Scenes flow between past and present, and concern Jonah, a young Trans man, who seeks purpose in his small hometown and finds it in the belly of a whale. Leaving home is hard, but returning sometimes requires a miracle. Bruce exhibits a powerful lyrical imagination in layered dialog, supernatural journeys, and poetic stage directions. The play stirred readers at the Depot with its daring juxtapositions of the intimate and the mythic. This drama took us someplace new and moved us with its beauty.

Bruce's words flow like poetry as their characters struggle with old heartaches and grief and loss. Everything is complicated and sad and weighed down by the past. The dialogue and stage directions are equally rich and vibrant, building towards an ending that's 100 times more complicated than it is happy, but still has a streak of happiness in the midst of so much world weariness. This play is so timely and relevant and lovely and warm and hard and soft and open and real. Make space for this PLACE in your theater, hug it and invite it to come stay.

I am in love with this play! What a heartbreaking and beautiful story about grief and loss. Darcy's imagery and poetic language really make this play a must-read. I'd love to see it someday. (Also amazing title. It's what immediately drew me to this play)

Darcy's writing never fails to stun with its sharp-softness, and this play is no exception. This play carries its audience on its back (or in its belly) with all the tenderness and tempestuousness of the sea. In this play, the living as well as the dead can haunt a place, even as it haunts them, the kind of dreamlike feedback loop of love and hurt we only find when we go home. Can't wait to see this piece come to life.

Darcy Parker Bruce portrays a small town - itself the belly of a whale - that is being haunted by death; not even a ghost has peace here. Jonah is a mess and, like many thirty year olds, doesn't understand why he is where he is, and so drinks for both the bonding and drowning experience. If only everyone would commit to what - or who - was best for them. Instead, bonds of friendship breakdown into a cogency for connection, into the hunt for home; this primal force is tested across the planes of time, space, and dreamed dimensions.

This was a heartbreaking and stunning read from start to finish. Darcy's take on how families are formed, and destroyed, and how grief will chase you from your neighbor's house, to Aleppo, to the belly of a whale, all builds to a spectacular ending. There's magic in these pages, and I cannot wait to see it staged.