←Recommendations of FULLERTON

I feel like these are the kind of plays written about towns in the midwest. The less affluent conservative parts of Orange County don't get written about much. I appreciated this play providing a window into that world and into the lives of these people that are trying to be themselves and figure out what the future has in store for them. The short scenes really make for a well-paced play that spans many years of adolescence. Got some big Our Town vibes.

Terrific, a visit to the past of all the highs and lows with the humor and pain of growing up. Well done.

Full of memorable, flawed and detailed characters, told at a breakneck pace and illustrated in stage directions with a knowing wink and nostalgic sigh, FULLERTON is a stunningly rendered play that feels like swimming in the deep end of youth - in all its mundane wonder and wonderful mundaneness - and then sharply coming up for air - heart bursting, eyes open, breath caught in the ghost of a moment.

It is the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's pleasure to recommend Daniel K. Isaac and their play FULLERTON 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.

This gorgeous play so beautifully straddles the lines between hilarity and heartbreak; bold theatricality and microscopic subtlety. The mosaic of scenes progress at engaging, irregular rhythms, and small moments of humanity are punctuated with movements/scenes that beg for brash staging and movement. Daniel K. Isaac weaves the characters' identities so thoroughly and meticulously throughout the fabric of this piece, and to see this collection of people have such a finely-rendered and universally potent story (friendship, coming of age, identity formation, nostalgia, family) makes my heart sing. It is also *hilarious* and made me cry more than once. Beautiful!

AH! The balance of pain and humor in this play is surgical. At once, FULLERTON feels like... a California ghost story about the places we leave? But also a love letter to the way that absence drives us to make beauty for ourselves? And also that sensation of when it’s the end of the Prom night, and everybody’s smiling and sweaty, but on the drive home all of the possibilities of the night start dimming into reality? Wow??? Read it, produce it, please and thank you <3