Recommended by Joshua Young

I was delighted to see this piece on NPX. I think it's tense and suspenseful but also rooted in some real issues concerning exploitation. I think it's especially noteworthy how those issues are handled, with care and never cheaply.

I was delighted to see this piece on NPX. I think it's tense and suspenseful but also rooted in some real issues concerning exploitation. I think it's especially noteworthy how those issues are handled, with care and never cheaply.

Gina's characters are complete and whole in a way rarely seen on stage. You root for the characters and their relationships as they navigate an environment not predisposed to their favor... and it feels earned and authentic so that at every beat you are fully engaged. Also, Gina doesn't take cheap shots or easy ways out when she explores the conflict of identity versus a repressive landscape... no quick political outs... no, it really digs into the circumstances and makes the world feel lived in. Honestly, I hope this is the kinda play high schools produce soon.

Charlotte writes characters that seek out connections with one another while dealing with the profound consequences of pedestrian disappointment. People trying to connect when they've been broken, but not broken because they didn't win some great prize but broken in the way millions of everyday people are broken. I believe it's hard to write those stories and make them resonate... because things that are day-to-day and pedestrian tend to be hard to theatricalize. But Charlottes engage with them well and her plays should receive more attention.

This play is exceptionally moving and rich. I think this play is about dealing with grief, but it does something rather hard to do: it serves as a release for the communal grief of the audience. The characters are rich and the world complex and phantasmagoric... which serves to heighten the existential fear that comes with facing terror, death, and what comes next.

I read this play at The Sewanee Writers' Conference and was thoroughly engaged from start to finish. The presence of a talking Pot Roast does not belie this play's deeper merits. The characters are resonant and meaningful... and the truly touching subject matter is only heightened by moments of exquisite whimsy and lightheartedness. Well worth development!

The emotional truths of this piece are effortlessly revealed.