←Recommendations of GRIT

WHOA. Such a complex & natural portrayal of teenage friendship, the terrifyingly constant presence of online madness, the isolation that can come with seeking better opportunities as POC, and the shame that can accompany hiding deep-seated truths about oneself. Sasha & Raymond's respective art forms fit them and their personalities so well. This play also depicts the injustice that is all-too-often snaking about within academia and its systems. Lovely characters and storytelling - I hope this play is produced far and wide!

Ooooh this play! The dialogue just flies along and the characters sound so much like teenagers. ("Get the fuck off my nutsack, Mom" in particular made me laugh.) Nick Malakhow has a great ear for dialogue. I also love the way texts and other social media are projected onto the wall. This play is wonderful, and it's a perfect vehicle to draw in young people who don't think theater is for them.

Nick Malakhow has crafted a lyrical and deeply-rendered vision of life for two strong but delicate characters in a setting that is so alien to them that the only way to survive is with each other. They need each other, and yet...

I know all too well what the world he lands them in is like, but seen through their eyes it takes on a completely different texture. The grit he speaks of is not only what is required of Raymond and Sasha, but the constant irritation of the world that is grinding them down. This will stay with you.

A beautiful example of the magic that Nick Malakhow wields when it comes to character and narrative, we meet two fully fleshed-out, compelling, human characters that I found myself needing to continually remind myself were just high school kids, bearing as they did the weight of the world and feeling so alone, even in company. Malakhow expertly weaves touches of teen anxiety, pressure, sexuality, and race but never in a prescriptive way: this is a heartbreaking, all-too-real examination of what we ask of teens as they figure things out in a vacuum. Beautifully rendered, which is no surprise at all.

I heard this play as a part of a reading series at Indiana University, and I was just blown away. I felt so much for the two characters, and bore witness to the absurd kinds of pressure we put onto teenagers without even thinking about it. I was especially moved by the speech about grit near the end of the play. Malakhow knows how to build up trust, tension and earn transformation onstage and off.

Rising in nerves, tentativeness, and tension - GRIT, much like its ruminations on music, rollercoasters and rocky relationships - captures the microcosmic intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality and more all set at one of those boarding schools that definitely has a brochure full of white children smiling. With a crystallized in amber cinematic vibe, this two hander shines in its realistic and detailed dialogue, it’s lived in pace, and complex and layered leads in Sasha and Raymond that any actor would be lucky to explore.

A powerful look at race, sexual orientation, and isolation in a privileged school setting. I love that as present as the white, privileged voices around Sasha and Raymond are via text messages, they are the two characters whose story is placed centrally (as they are the only two characters we see or hear from directly onstage). This conveys a clear and direct sense of the environment they are living and learning in while giving the reader or audience a focused look at their specific pain and loneliness in a world where they are the "others."

"You just gotta find people to survive with" is stated early on in the play, and it is a concept Malakhow sticks to, examines, blows up, and puts back together. With theatrical projections of messages and texts, one-sided conversations, and the removal of other characters, this two-hander is a powerful examination friendship and connection. I kept thinking about the speed of trust, including how and when to let people into the private places in your mind. Sasha and Raymond have to navigate that balance, revealing the pain they have been dealt, in an authentic and very moving way.

A beautiful window into the lives of two teenagers, each with their own burdens, but tied together through what they share in common. I love that it's a two-hander, allowing us to focus on the isolation and detachment each character feels. The use of text messages as projections feels contemporary and would be great to see executed. I hope that high school directors take a good look at this play, both for the sake of the students with whom it will resonate and for those who need to experience what it's like to look through someone else's eyes.

I was drawn into this play and its themes of isolation, particularly in how it uses a boarding school as a way to highlight inequalities based on intersections of gender, ethnicity, race, and sexual orientation, but always feeling like a lived experience. We get to be very close to Raymond's and Sasha's lives, seeing them hear or respond to other people without showing those others on stage. This self-awareness was particularly striking in how it brings an audience very, very close to the characters, offering insight to the major challenges youth faced based on their identities.