←Recommendations of WINDBERRY CREEK

Carnes does a wonderful job crafting three full formed intergenerational women. Lots of humor and heart!

Carnes really excels at writing generations of interesting women, leading to great roles for actors of all types in her scripts, and this play is no exception. Community theatres looking to give actresses great roles with achievable production elements should definitely check this play out, but it deserves higher-budget productions just as much! Give it a read!

An engrossing exploration of complex family dynamics, told with incredible insight, humor and humanity.
There are no false notes here, just glorious writing and an emotional honesty that cuts to the bone. Highly recommended!

This play is a masterful peek into the hearts and lives of a daughter, mother, and grandmother who are all doing their best to deal with the vicissitudes of life in their own way. The characters are fully realized and utterly irresistible. Filled with brilliant dialogue, Carnes builds the backstory of these incredible women in a way that feels completely natural. The characters inhabit a cabin for a mere three days, but this story will live with me for much longer than that. It’s haunting, hilarious, and relevant.

A really moving family portrait with huge doses of reality. Everyone here is wildly flawed, lovable, and only seeking for the simplest things in life which prove difficult and therefore rewarding. Rachael's script moves nicely, with unexpected turns coming at just the right spots. In avoiding spoiling the final scene, she balances humor and closure delicately to create a realistic and rewarding final moment.

There is no one who writes like Carnes with such humor and heart, and this is one of those plays everyone should read and remember because it is true gift to the stage. I am sorry I am missing the reading that’s happening this weekend, but family histories and family pains are so well documented in this heartbreaking play which strips away the veneer off mental illness and how much it permeates our current culture. See this play. Remember this play. Remember Carnes. She is on a bright path lighting the way for us all.

Rachel Carnes has an uncanny ability to strip back layers of her characters in ways that draw the audience in and makes us want to know more. She created three beautiful, vulnerable, multi-dimensional women that I love! This story is full of snappy dialogue and the right blend of humor and conflict that delves deep into life, death, fear, family, self-discovery and everything else that makes us human.

A stirring work of closure, self-discovery, and how we bury and unearth the past. Rachael Carnes’ characters are expertly drawn, and instantly lovable... whether it’s for their dark brooding air, their frantic high-maintenance nature, or their socially inappropriate outbursts. These women feel real. The writing here calls to mind the work of Susan Harris... she and Carnes share an uncanny ability to craft uproariously funny dialogue/situations, and turn on a dime, on a single line, changing the tone so effortlessly that you’d be laughing as the tears start to stream. A dark and beautiful play.

This may be my favorite of Rachael Carnes' plays: all of the hallmarks of her best work are here, heightened by some of her sharpest dialogue, characters who are truly struggling with the conflicts that come from just being themselves, yet are completely relatable, and a story that plumbs the depths of their problems with humanity and a healthy dose of humor. And the ending, well nigh perfect, will rip your heart out. A beautiful work.

This is an emotionally affecting and potent story of three generations of women confronting mortality, grief, and the open wounds of family trauma. While the specters of suicide and mental illness hang over them, Carnes mines appropriately used and much-needed humor from the unique humanity of each of her characters. Emma, Mary, and Kate are all compelling and fully realized characters who, by the end of the piece, come to understand what's behind some of their central tensions with one another. The ending is satisfying, heartbreaking, and hopeful. I hope to see this developed and produced soon!