Recommended by Beckett Flynn

"And when I make my way outside, into an empty public, I notice no one’s there. I make my journey into a desert, a neo-Jesús, everything Judean, all of us one sexy, sick Judas, pining for the next person to make toothless."

"The high-pitched screech and squeal of burning rubber in orbit. Hydraulic pump, rickshaw car frame, bustling like yer brother in bunk bed, post- virginal, post-sixty-second homecoming fuck."

"Call ‘em shit beans. Call me shit- mouth. Well, my shit-mouth turns to a shit-fist, and knuckles meet a jawbone."

I mean what's there to say? Brutal poetry.

This play is simple, bloody, and barrels forward so fast that you don't even realize it's taken you to hell. It's characters are topical but forces are elemental; it features the central war of many of Patrick's plays: a rotted man who's impervious to change and a woman of exceptional grace who will spare no dignity to change him.

One of those rare plays that comes along and nails a topical issue right between the eyes in a visceral, real, human, way. A rare play with a clear protagonist, villain, and side characters that doesn’t feel hackneyed. A rare play that relies on plot and tension—that’s almost a thriller—and still invests so heavily in it’s characters. The first play in a long time that genuinely made me so uncomfortable I had to put it down for a bit. Read this play. It won’t be free for long.

Conventions of good taste in theatre would tell you you shouldn't make a play this plotty. They'd say plays that have this many twists and turns are tedious and would work better on the screen. Pay those "well-made-play" rules no mind. Upon reading "You Have Earned Bonus Stars", the reader's glad they're being pulled along through a journey rather than sitting through another living room or debate play. It forces the actors, and director to take chances, make decisions. The play snakes into dark places—places darker than one would expect. But I like that kind of thing.

What I love about this play is not it's well-made-play elements: it's deftly crafted structure, complex characters, snappy dialogue; or even its fantastic exploration of the controversial topic of assisted suicide. What I love about this play is it's grindhouse elements—it's willingness to genuinely shock the audience with how far it will go. This is a brutal, bloody and fun play—it owes just as much to Sam Rami as it does to Lucas Hnath. It GOES THERE and has elements of the drawing room as well as the slaughterhouse. I wish there were more like it.

Gorgeous. Written with not just a thematic lightness but a spiritual lightness. Sickles' decision to end the monologue with the parent stopping mid-sentence to address the kid who's come in speaks volumes about this character. More than any line or scene could. A marvel of withheld information

This character is someone you could meet any given day. You probably meet all the time. This character is the reason I left the suburbs and don't plan on returning.

Bureaucracy makes bastards of us all. So many of our laws, capital structures, and cultural restrictions force us to look at lice for everything but what it is — an exchange of empathies. We're forced to treat each other transactionally. Forced to take emotions out of everything — even the most emotional things. Tragic...

Brutal. Important. Pulls no punches.he great thing about the twist isn't that it feels like it's something that the playwright is pulling on you — it feels like something constructed by the character. She uses specific language and tells this story in a specific way — a way that makes you horrified at the "kidnapper" — a way that puts you on her side. The horrifying part of this play isn't that Sister Constance wins — it's that her plea will likely win over the hearts of a large portion of this country. Horrifying. Read it.

"Well, you’re boring. You’re boring! You’re not curious. And you’re not the Velvet Underground okay, there is nothing bohemian or radical about living here anymore, this whole place has been paved over into Disney for people like us, because our parents can afford it."

A great meta-play that never gets lost up in the cleverness of being meta. Deals with relationships between young people in a very real way. Really gets how we relate to eachother and art.