←Recommendations of Nothing Remained But Voice And Bones

The Workshop Theater is pleased to recognize Allyson Dwyer as a playwright selected out of a competitive pool of applicants for our Spring 2022 Writer’s Intensive. The Writer’s Intensive is an eight-week long, playwright-driven process geared towards revising an existing play. Nothing Remained But Voice and Bones is a sharply-observed longitudinal study on the effects that internalized fatphobia and conventional beauty standards have on the life of a young woman. The piece is fantastically theatrical and refreshingly frank in its depiction of body image struggles. Our congratulations and thanks to Allyson.

A piece of theatre that gets to the heart of our society's obsession with thinness by looking at the life of one woman from her 20s to her 70s. The way time and stage magic is used is so effective at getting us in Mel's headspace.

Dwyer's script drives at it's core from all angles and across a lifetime. All roads lead to one overwhelming, highly relatable thought. The weight of this constant self-negging is crushing and so very real.

This play is an honest and alarming piece about the pressure women face to look a certain way and strive after "beauty". The language feels so natural and real and the pain of the characters pulsates off the pain. This play is gorgeously written and true yet also an amazing call to action and a story that could set many of us free.

The life you are robbed of in the pursuit of perfection, the feeling of unworthiness and the way that alters your perception of how others perceive you is captured exquisitely. How can we stop torturing and abusing ourselves? The question every woman has asked at some point. Terrific work.

Still wiping away tears after reading this. Heartbreakingly relatable, Dwyer takes us on a journey with Mel through her whole life, wishing she took up a little less space. So many lines in this play have run through my own mind as I am sure they have gone through many other minds. This script has the potential to really shake people to the core, but also open many eyes as well. Theatre and film directors take note. This is a script to bring to life! Just like Mel, it deserves to be seen and loved for the beauty it is.

This wrenching piece captures something about living with an ED that most narratives on the topic fail to truly communicate--the heartbreaking ways one's illness infects, informs, and shapes their relationships with others and how that compounds loneliness and isolation. We see the haunting, metaphorical Everywoman have direct negative impacts on Mel; we also see Mel navigate a minefield of triggers and trauma in everyday interactions with people who, ostensibly, care greatly for her, but whose very existence brings trouble for her. This collage of slim, harrowing scenes is potent, and nuanced. Such excellent work!

Nothing Remained But Voice and Bones is a crushing, well-crafted piece that creates a striking visual metaphor of eating disorders. By giving us three versions of the same woman at three different points in her life, we're given a stark portrait of body dysmorphia and how it feels to live outside of yourself. Dwyer's play really works when these embodiments collide and share the space, finding the right balance between the poetry and the pain.

A simply devastating piece. The play's depiction of a character with body image issues is unrelentingly honest, but the device of showing us the same character at different points in life adds another layer that really enhances the power of the story. We see how a youthful obsession follows this character through her life, shaping her in every relation with others. The overall effect is heart-breaking.

This is a stunning, heart-wrenching look into one woman's experiences of beauty standards and body image issues throughout an entire life. With great care and phenomenal theatricality, Nothing Remained But Voice and Bones presents not only the cycles of struggling with one's image, but also the desire to break it, to reach out before it is too late. Past, present, and future all come together as one, in the hopes that something will change. A profoundly affecting piece that hit me right in my core.