←Recommendations of The Totality of All Things

I was in the audience for the reading at the Valdez Theatre Conference. And wow! THE TOTALITY OF ALL THINGS dominated the conversations in the hallways and at lunch. I think the reason I loved it was because with the subject of small town America and discrimination, it's all too easy to resort to stereotypes and easy answers. Instead Gernand teases out so many complexities in the characters. There are no heroes and no villains. Just humans dealing with big things. It was lovely, rich, provoking, funny, sad, and in the end hopeful.

I saw this play as a reading at Valdez Theatre Conference and was blown away. It explores so many questions pervasive in media today - duty to report as a journalist, shades of culpability, and how to approach the truth. I came away hoping I would be able to see it again as a full production soon.

There's so much to unpack in this piece, which examines everything from friendship and politics to who we are as human beings. I am still thinking about this play. I know it will continue to stick with me.

A taut, absorbing, thought-provoking drama that is probably the best play I saw at this year's Valdez Theatre Conference. Gernand takes a relatively minor bit of vandalism and spins it into an engrossing (and often quite funny) tale filled with richly-drawn and wholly believable characters. It's piece that takes us on a real journey even as it stays rooted in time and place.

For those of us who have worked in public schools and seen the impact that repression of thought and expression has wrought on every member of the community -- students, teachers, and parents -- and how the struggle to speak out has become a threat to life and liberty, Erik Gernand's story of one school, one teacher, one family, and one friend is a powerful statement. It is done without taking sides, deftly avoiding the polemics by making it about the people and the unintended consequences. Seen at the 2024 Valdez Theatre Conference, it needs to be seen everywhere.

THE TOTALITY OF ALL THINGS is something rare and wondrous - a play about political polarization which is in no way polarized itself. Gernand instead creates a vast world in his small town setting, teeming with vivd life and filled with wistfully nostalgic humor (it seems weird to feel nostalgic for 2015, but Gernand makes it abundantly clear why we do). When tragedy comes, it comes in the Aristotelean as well as the modern sense, and Gernand's sorrow and anger never gets in the way of his astounding compassion. Spectacular.

Wow! I was blown away by the reading of this play at the Valdez Theatre Conference. Each character is complex and compelling. What is extraordinary about this piece is the layering of facts (truth) and how each thing you think you know will change make this a truly amazing piece of writing and theater. This show deserves multiple productions.

Just watched (via YouTube) a reading of this intricate, beautifully crafted play at the Valdez Theatre Conference. Wow. Still catching my breath. Gernand's wonderfully human characters burrow right into your heart, then reveal another piece of themselves you might not have guessed. And maybe don't like. A lot. Whose side am I on now? The complexity of the polarization embedded within this community - political, cultural, religious - is as stark as it is real, as layer after layer is revealed. Nearly a direct reflection of our times, this play belongs on stage. In multiple venues. Now.

Phew! Essential reading and viewing at this moment. Using the community in a small, Indiana public school, Erik Gernand deftly comments on political polarization and the dangerous collision of personal identity and friction between ideologies. All of the characters have these delightful little human nuances which only underscore how complex humans are beneath the bluster of big, competing political viewpoints and the ways relationships and movements suffer when we forget that very thing. In Judith, we have a wonderfully flawed nucleus with an Aristotelian level of hubris that haunts her final decisions in the play. Produce this now!