←Recommendations of GUSHER!

As weather forces four women (one couple, one mother & daughter) to take shelter, things get weirder, then so. much. redder? There’s blood in this play. Lots. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. An incredible exploration of female rage in contemporary society, but also what it means to care for your loved ones and aid them w/o succumbing to toxic positivity. Sometimes, shit sucks, and like blood, you can’t just wash it away. Not easily. This is delightful, vibrant horror, and it’s excellent.

Jan Rosenberg has SUCH a gift for writing honest, dynamic teenage characters - turns out they're pretty awesome at writing adults as well! In this play, two messy, broken duos come together and confront their damaged relationships under progressively strange circumstances. The entire production is a blood bath that will make designers cry tears of joy and wardrobe assistants weep over laundry. It's filled with awesome opportunities for stage pictures and a lot of gorgeous, disgusting, genuine, beautiful moments. It felt timely but somehow also as timeless and eternal as Davie's pain. Honest, raw, and unapologetically queer... I loved it!

This is not a play you'll ever forget reading or seeing performed. It's a dream world for actors to dip into and the care taken with which each character's humanity makes this play truly stand out in the horror genre. The comedy is precise and whip-smart and the tender moments confronting shame and rebelling against it are so successful. Jan knows how to make a world full of expansive rules and break them all in the same breath.

An authentic and honest confrontation of the shaming of our biology when we're going through it. Well done.

GUSHER! lives between genres and moods in a way that only amplifies its queasy power. Disarmingly funny and humane, but shot through with a streak of apocalyptic cynicism. Unsettling and uncompromising, but always sensitive to the vulnerabilities of its audience and its characters. This is one of the most distinctive plays I’ve recently read.

As a diehard fan and writer of horror, I'm always thinking about what's effectively scary onstage, which is much different than what's effectively scary onscreen. And this play--the first I've read of Jan's--shows that she's a writer who KNOWS theatrical horror, and how the medium invites true narrative flexibility. Yes, these four complicated characters confront the queasier aspects that always accompany internal and external transformation. But by the end, that queasiness has given way to beauty and acceptance without ever skimping on the rawness. I loved this play and can't wait to read more!

It is the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's pleasure to recommend Jan Rosenberg and their play GUSHER! as a finalist for our 2020 National Playwrights Conference. This particular work emerged from a highly competitive, anonymous, and multi-tiered selection process to become one of 63 finalists out of more than 1,500 submissions. This enthralling piece galvanized the hearts and theatrical imaginations of our reading teams and is fully championed by our offices. We are honored to put our enthusiastic support behind this writer and their ongoing contributions to the American Theater.

As the 1st female to recommend this play, it's refreshingly fabulous! GUSHER! delves so graphically into menstruation (love the casual handing of a bloody tampon to another person)! Stakes plus the ongoing discussion of cramps in a deluge while the universe is bleeding. IF ONLY! Love the premise, love the characters, love the (mimetic) language, the screaming and the caustic way Rosenberg has of laying it all out there in all its beauty: the female condition! Makes me want to chant in my kitchen: we're here, we're queer, we're bleeding, get used to it! (I will never miss my period.)

GUSHER! uses heightened theatricality to explore the numerous ways women of all ages and gender identities encounter seemingly unending oppressive structures and cycles in society, while showing us ways forward. The storm is a beautifully apt metaphor. I love how the piece is full of anger and conflict and viscerality, while the women in the piece are never cruel and destructive towards one another. Each character is nuanced and grappling with their own set of intersectionally rich issues. Atmospherically, Rosenberg balances quiet moments with tempestuous rage in a glorious and irregular rhythm. I'd love to see this staged!

Intense and riveting from its first lines, GUSHER! kept me glued to the page from beginning to end; my head exploded on at least four occasions, from both the emotional involvement I felt with the characters, and the sheer craft of Rosenberg's writing. Recommended, highly.