←Recommendations of The Wonderful Out There

This play is tragic and heartbreaking and harrowing and hopeful. This play raises awareness of an all to frequent issue in the neurodivergent community, and gives voice to children whose voices were taken from them. Powerful, moving, and hopefully motivating to do better for neurotypical audiences.

Parts Cuckoo's nest, Peter Pan, and Sarte; The Wonderful Out There tends to its characters' unique needs and tendencies with utmost care in the face of unthinkable tragedy. We see these kids thrive in their respective elements as the story reveals the circumstances that threatens to dim what makes them shine. perhaps forever.
It's a decision they'll have to make for themselves.

This play is beautiful in a painful way. That said, it does not inspire despair but rather it challenges one to love deeper in ways both radical and necessary.

My favorite Dave Osmundsen play yet.

Harrowing and beautiful, this play is Osmundsen turning his characteristic compassion towards unthinkable darkness and trying to find a light, any light, within it. The result is haunting and profound. Won't be forgetting this one any time soon.

Beware of gingerbread houses.

This group home is like an inverted gingerbread house: perfect inside but getting out requires an honesty both unflinching and unfair. Especially to discarded children who’ve been through enough.

Bravely uncompromising, the play avoids being twee by showing its children at their most delightful and most taxing. We enjoy them AND get why their parents couldn’t hack it. Their caretaker Larry loves them as they are but his emotional paralysis - an agonized generosity and infinite despair – is heartbreaking.

This play enchants, soars, and devastates, in turns and ultimately all at once.