Recommended by Daniel Hirsch

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    An achingly beautiful portrayal of new love, but like all good love stories it's about so much more than just love. It's about family and ambition, grief and dreams, identity and the natural world. Poetic and full of incredible images, there was also real sensuous pleasure in spending time in this play's world.

    An achingly beautiful portrayal of new love, but like all good love stories it's about so much more than just love. It's about family and ambition, grief and dreams, identity and the natural world. Poetic and full of incredible images, there was also real sensuous pleasure in spending time in this play's world.

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    This play bubbles over with so much heart, tenderness, and specificity in its thoughtful depiction of Minneapolis's Gambian community. By the end of the play you feel as if personally you know these funny, complicated characters—- as if they are you own extended family of cousins, aunts, and uncles whose company you are delighted to spend time in.

    This play bubbles over with so much heart, tenderness, and specificity in its thoughtful depiction of Minneapolis's Gambian community. By the end of the play you feel as if personally you know these funny, complicated characters—- as if they are you own extended family of cousins, aunts, and uncles whose company you are delighted to spend time in.

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    This play completely transformed my image of the musical icon that has become too reduced to just her hits. Messy, funny, vulnerable, radical, this Aretha brims with complexity and paradox as she plays a gripping psychological cat and mouse game with none other than the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

    This play completely transformed my image of the musical icon that has become too reduced to just her hits. Messy, funny, vulnerable, radical, this Aretha brims with complexity and paradox as she plays a gripping psychological cat and mouse game with none other than the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

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    An elephant never forgets... but when you've lived a lifetime in captivity maybe you'd like to? This achingly funny, philosophical, and poignant play delves into the heart of the question of personhood and centers an indelible odd couple in Happy and Patty that I won't soon forget.

    An elephant never forgets... but when you've lived a lifetime in captivity maybe you'd like to? This achingly funny, philosophical, and poignant play delves into the heart of the question of personhood and centers an indelible odd couple in Happy and Patty that I won't soon forget.

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    Move over Noises Off there's a new door-slamming ensemble farce in town that is truly side-bustingly funny. But beyond all the beautiful crafted jokes and flip-or-flop hijinks, there's also a beating heart and inquiring sensibility examining the nature of home and the complex social and political dynamics of the messy, beautiful sprawl that is Los Angeles.

    Move over Noises Off there's a new door-slamming ensemble farce in town that is truly side-bustingly funny. But beyond all the beautiful crafted jokes and flip-or-flop hijinks, there's also a beating heart and inquiring sensibility examining the nature of home and the complex social and political dynamics of the messy, beautiful sprawl that is Los Angeles.

  • Daniel Hirsch: A Series of Inelastic Collisions by Eugenie Carabatsos
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    It was so satisfying to spend some time with a richly layered portrait of an American family in this current very troubled time in American life. Each character of Rain's clan felt fully realized and wonderfully complex. This play was at times moving, funny, and always tender.

    It was so satisfying to spend some time with a richly layered portrait of an American family in this current very troubled time in American life. Each character of Rain's clan felt fully realized and wonderfully complex. This play was at times moving, funny, and always tender.

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  • Daniel Hirsch: The Dark by Serena Berman
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    This play was simply thrilling. It perfectly captures the abject horror of adolescence and that of an actually haunted basement. When I wasn't laughing, or cringe-laughing, I was white-knuckling my armrests in total terror. The production I saw at the 2019 Samuel French Off Off Broadway was elegantly and simply staged and I could see future productions doing great things with THE DARK.

    This play was simply thrilling. It perfectly captures the abject horror of adolescence and that of an actually haunted basement. When I wasn't laughing, or cringe-laughing, I was white-knuckling my armrests in total terror. The production I saw at the 2019 Samuel French Off Off Broadway was elegantly and simply staged and I could see future productions doing great things with THE DARK.

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  • Daniel Hirsch: Winner by Amy Berryman
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    I saw this play at the 2019 Samuel French Off Off and laughed out loud through all of it. But it was the kind of laugh that was rooted in an uncomfortable knowledge that a work of art is holding up a mirror to a community so that it may better see its worts. WINNER examines the nature of creative competition, racial politics, and asks what kind of art should be valued in "the current climate." It does so brilliantly, hilariously, and...winningly.

    I saw this play at the 2019 Samuel French Off Off and laughed out loud through all of it. But it was the kind of laugh that was rooted in an uncomfortable knowledge that a work of art is holding up a mirror to a community so that it may better see its worts. WINNER examines the nature of creative competition, racial politics, and asks what kind of art should be valued in "the current climate." It does so brilliantly, hilariously, and...winningly.

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  • Daniel Hirsch: PARTNER OF — by Rachael Carnes
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    This short play packs a powerful punch that left me feeling haunted and troubled by an often untold moment of American history. I had the honor to encounter Carnes's work through the 2019 Samuel French Off Off Broadway Festival and I'm so glad I did. PARTNER OF is masterfully constructed and probing in its examination of race, history, power, and trauma.

    This short play packs a powerful punch that left me feeling haunted and troubled by an often untold moment of American history. I had the honor to encounter Carnes's work through the 2019 Samuel French Off Off Broadway Festival and I'm so glad I did. PARTNER OF is masterfully constructed and probing in its examination of race, history, power, and trauma.

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  • Daniel Hirsch: ROUND by Johnny G. Lloyd
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    I saw this play at the 2019 Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival and found it to be a deeply engaging, provocative piece of theater. It made me think about race and power and desire and how our objects of desire can so often harms us. That a short play can illicit thinking on all those themes says a lot about what Lloyd has put into this play. It's also bitingly funny and well-observed about the way gay men can talk to each other in transactional world of dating and sex apps.

    I saw this play at the 2019 Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival and found it to be a deeply engaging, provocative piece of theater. It made me think about race and power and desire and how our objects of desire can so often harms us. That a short play can illicit thinking on all those themes says a lot about what Lloyd has put into this play. It's also bitingly funny and well-observed about the way gay men can talk to each other in transactional world of dating and sex apps.

    ”