←Recommendations of OPTIONAL BOSS BATTLE

In Optional Boss Battle, Nick Malakhow crafts a beautifully rendered portrait of two teen boys coming to terms with past trauma in a locked-down world, struggling to connect to their mothers and, most importantly, to each other. It's a gorgeous play that uses technology not simply to dazzle but to advance the story and reflect the struggles and complexities of Alonso and Ruben. Affirming, sharp, and deeply felt work.

This is a beautiful play that captures teenage loneliness and grief in the Lockdown days, sure, but also the isolation and fear teens have faced in every era. Ruben and Alonzo are easy-to-love characters, and their mothers feel vivid and real. Malakhow builds the boys' relationship perfectly over the course of the play, so that we are watching their friendship grow and change authentically. I love the battle scenes and the magical realism flip when they are playing the game. A gripping play!

OPTIONAL BOSS BATTLE beautifully captures the tender, messy journey of two teens navigating grief, isolation, and connection during the pandemic. With honesty and compassion, Malakhow explores the weight of mental health, identity, and friendship in these challenging times. A truly moving piece.

Superb, superb writing. Such a deep exploration of the aching vulnerability of teenage boys, especially this pair of them, each struggling to stay afloat as the world around them recedes at every angle. I'm incredibly happy I read this play. You will be, too.

Profound and affecting: an unsentimental yet tender story of humans fumbling toward growth, set in an all-too-vivid historical moment when everyone was plagued with fear and fatalism and a terror of interpersonal contact.

Malakow has a gift for crafting authentic teenagers dealing with big world problems. A heartfelt look at adolescence in the time of social distancing, and finding connection when it's nearly impossible to connect. A beautiful story crafted with empathy and heart.

This play offers such a heartbreakingly tender window into a world of young men finding their way, not just to each other, but to their best selves, it feels a privilege to be on the journey with them. Though their obstacles are very specific - being queer, being young, being thwarted by the pandemic, being overwhelmed by mental health issues, being terrified of everything I just mentioned, their humanity is universal. OPTIONAL BOSS BATTLE crackles with authenticity, right down to the kind but powerless teacher. Get this play out into the world!!

Nick Malakhow is incredibly gifted for writing complex characters with depth and authenticity. And in this full-length, he places the story in covid-era times and provides such an engaging work about the intersections of sexuality, internalized homophobia, and mental health. Especially poignant are the themes of connection between the queer teens and their mothers, navigating the ways we can be vulnerable and strong together. There are also exciting production elements to this play that theatre artists will love to explore about living our realities in an online fantasy world.

I always know I'm in for a powerful journey whenever Malakhow takes me "to school." The writer has such an instinctive grasp of characters at these crucial ages and their struggles dealing with their peers and their own identities. This piece's setting during the height of Covid adds another layer. We've all read a few Covid-related plays by now, but this is the first one I've read that makes such a vital connection between the stifling dread of lockdown and a character's self-imposed psychological shutdown. I look forward to seeing how this play progresses as it is already very strong.

Like most of Malakhow’s work that I’ve read this play brims with tenderness, darkness, hilarity and sorrow in equal measure. Capturing this moment we’re all in while not languishing in it, all from the specific perspective of two realistically drawn queer teenage boys finding connection through isolation, Malakhow’s play shows the small victories of persevering through hardships by being honest and vulnerable.