←Recommendations of The Wonderful Out There

A quietly crushing play. There is a looming dread that hovers over this piece as the characters slowly realize the truth of their situation. It's a piece exploring who gets to be seen & heard and the impact of living in an ableist society where anyone who is different contends with feeling like an outsider - sometimes even in their own families. It centers the bravery of striving for change and standing in your own power.

I just read "The Wonderful Our There" by Dave Osmundsen and I am devastated. This play tore at my soul and I sobbed as I read it. I could not stop reading. Beautiful and heartbreaking. A brilliant play.

A powerful piece that explores dark truths about children who are forced to confront the ways those who ostensibly cared about them ultimately betrayed or failed them. To reveal more plotwise is to ruin a great bit of the play's impact. I will just share that the characters are all amazingly unique and impeccably drawn and the fantastical/dreamlike/surreal elements help tackle the subject matter in a fitting, poignant manner. Amazing world building and I loved the meditative pacing!

The strength in this play is its honesty: honest portrayals of characters living with neurodivergence, honesty about the nature of the world they came from, and a moving level of vulnerability that left me sobbing. The world of this play is filled with a charming, almost magical theatricality. It's a blank (accessible!) slate for imaginative designers. ND actors will delight in delivering moving performances that reflect their lived experiences. It is a powerful call to action for all! Bravo!

THIS IS SO GOOD!!! IT'S GIVING Coraline, Amazing Digital Circus, The Promised Neverland (3 of my VERY favorites!!!!). Dialogue is fire. Character development is detailed and heartbreaking. The pacing is PERFECTION.

Thanks you, Dave, for the work you do.

Was lucky to catch the streamed staged reading of The Wonderful Out There, and I find that days later it has stayed with me. The subject matter is dark, but the pervasive sense of mystery and deep sadness that underpin these characters' efforts to understand why they are where they are make the play compelling, and Osmundsen deftly and strategically intersperses moments of levity along with engaging details about these characters' unique obsessions, so that one can't help but bear witness.

Had the pleasure of taking in this play through the Epiphanies festival at Wild Imaginings. Osmundsen has the incredible ability to command empathy for his characters from just seconds of seeing them on stage. The reveal of what is "out there" is devastating, but there is a beautiful thread of hope for these characters throughout, and I'm beyond excited to take in more of this playwrights' work to seek more of wonderful emotional layering like that.

I don’t think I’ve read a play that has dredged up more emotion, elicited a harder sob out of me than The Wonderful Out There by Dave Osmundsen. It is a marvel, a heartbreaking tribute, a eulogy, a call to action. I saw myself most in Daryl, but I also saw so many loved ones, kids I went to school with, kids I taught, people I know and have known. This play will stay with me for a long time.

THE WONDERFUL OUT THERE is a hard hitting play beautifully executed with love and compassion. Dave Osmundsen gives us a story about a group of kids whose searching and longing is so powerful it transcends life and death. This piece highlights the abuse faced by many neurodivergent children.

This is a captivating story that will make for a heartfelt evening of theatre, but it is also a memorial and a call to action that deserves a spotlight center stage.

This play wrecked me. The theatrical imagery, the well-constructed mystery, the tenderly drawn adolescent characters—and most of all, the unflinching way it confronts the discrimination and cruelty faced by autistic/ND children.

Osmundsen’s parable resonates on a universal level—is the joy of life worth the potential, inevitable pain?—but his perspective as a neurodivergent playwright brings an extra layer of meaning and specificity to this devastatingly beautiful play.

I’m the parent of an autistic child; I read TWOT with him in my arms, shedding more than a few tears and promising to protect him. Powerful piece.