←Recommendations of The Amphibians

I fell in love with this play from the first time I read it, and it has stuck with me ever since. The Amphibians is a beautiful coming of age climate crisis play with the perfect mix of realism and fantasy. It has wonderful strong female characters and the potential for some incredible design work when staged. Love this play!

I'm always excited by plays that address the climate crisis—I don't think there are enough of them—and this one does so from a very personal, character-driven place, which I find very effective. I also love the juxtaposition of this magical, surreal creature inserted into an otherwise totally realistic play, and there's a lot of theatrical potential—I could see this working in a really bare-bones way (perhaps having the creature represented purely by sound and lighting effects), or in a full-scale production, with an amazing puppet.

A human and small symptom of a macrocosmic problem, beautifully rendered in the small-town angst of growing up. Would love to see this energetic work on its feet and fully staged!

Caffrey takes the familiar sci-fi trope of 'kids find and befriend a strange creature without telling the adults' and then considers what rising ocean levels would add to the mix in this tightly-wound pieces set thirteen years in the future. A strong meditation on growing up and growing apart in a changing world, 'The Amphibians' considers the ways in which Simone and Bryn's friendship is tested when they come across an injured, evolving creature. A really fun read.

It is the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's pleasure to recommend Dan Caffrey and their play The Amphibians 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.

WOW! This hit me HARD. Hilarious and depressing and frightening. A sort of coming of age story as the world is on the brink of collapse. It truly taps into all of the fears of the end of the world that we push away by playing mindless games on our phones. Loved this. Would love to see the creature onstage!

A funny and thought-provoking piece with two great roles for young women. Caffrey starts with a potent set up and the momentum never drops through the well-written scenes that fly by at engaging and irregular rhythms. He utilizes the evolving creature as a clever metaphor for the central themes--evolving relationships in adolescence, existential anxieties about climate change and the state of the world--and executes some skillful world-building of a hypothetical future by dropping well-timed details into the conversations. It also goes without saying that the creature (and the ending) provide a fun creative challenge for a production team.