←Recommendations of From the Perspective of a Canoe

This dark, beautiful, funny play feels like it was crafted by a croissant baker. Each page, a new layer peels back, and as you keep going through the layers, the new but similar layers, you arrive closer to the heart of this complicated play. Nobody knows what to do during something like this, so all you can do is eat a turnip and hope for the best. Well done.

Probably the most brilliant play I've ever read. The dialog is biting, real, and laugh until you're crying funny. A black comedy to beat all black comedies.

The community of national & local readers for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival in 2021 enthusiastically recommends FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF A CANOE as a Semi-Finalist at Playwrights Foundation out of 755 plays. We highly enjoyed the brisk pacing and believable characters in this humorous investigation of family and community grief during a family's 4th of July BBQ. We were compelled by this play's promise as an allegory of America's non-response to mass shootings, as well as a smartly written play about loss. We hope this play is widely read, finds dedicated collaborators, and moves swiftly towards production. #BAPF2021

Wow. This is such a powerful piece. It almost feels disrespectful to call it fun, but I did enjoy the biting wit of the characters in the face of some horrible, unthinkable tragedies. The surreal image of a woman sitting in a canoe in a backyard is just enough to draw you in and hold you there as the whole day spirals out of control. This play needs to be produced!

This play so perfectly captures how tragedy can have a ripple effect on people’s lives and how humor can coexist with even the deepest feelings of grief and pain and loss. Dellagiarino’s dialogue flows so naturally and it really felt like she had been listening in on one of my own family’s holidays. This is a deceptively simple play that would be easy to produce and allow some talented actors to really shine. Highly recommended!

A fast and furious piece that transforms what should be an unbearable reckoning into a deeply empathetic and frequently hilarious portrait of a family navigating an impossible circumstance. The detail present in Dellagiarino's characters is ridiculously impressive, allowing for explosive exchanges and supremely uncomfortable moments. Comfort is tough to give when it isn't accepted. Closure is hard to achieve when you're not satisfied with what you know. Familial love in all it's contradictory splendor is here in full force and what an experience it is to witness in this magnificent dark comedy.

A fantastic play with crisp, active dialogue that moves so succinctly with a pace to die for. Characters that I know, people that are human, screwed up, endearing, funny, assholes at times; they are so real and relatable and the family dynamic so true and easily accessible. At times hilarious and at others heartbreaking, Ms. Dellagiarino strikes the perfect balance of funny and sad, grief-stricken while also shimmers of hopefulness. I will think about this play long after finishing reading it. Can't wait to see it onstage. Also, I need to eat a turnip now.

This is a bold, deeply layered dark comedy that asks a question so obvious I can't believe I'd never thought about before: in the aftermath of a mass shooting, what about the family of the perpetrator? Those saddled with guilt and anger and fear, who have to face the brunt of the community's hatred but can never fully grieve on their own? Dellagiarino skilfully navigates this terrain with a killer set piece (a canoe the traumatized Tess never exits) and a grill that is tantalizingly never lit. A beautifully clever script around an extraordinarily difficult subject. I'm very impressed.

Perhaps it's morally nebulous to recommend a play your sister wrote, but I think this play is wonderful. It deals with the aftermath of a mass shooting, from the perspective of the family of the shooter (one of whom refuses to exit the titular canoe). An exploration of how a person who feels they're not allowed to grieve handles grief, this play is smart and also - somehow - very funny.