←Recommendations of Johnny 10 Beers' Daughter

It is the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's pleasure to recommend Dana Formby and their play Johnny 10 Beers' Daughters as a finalist for our 2016 National Playwrights Conference. The play rose through a competitive, anonymous, multileveled selection process that took nearly nine months to execute. As one of 54 finalists out of more than 1,450 submissions, the strength of its writing has allowed this work to prosper in such a competitive selection process. Our readers especially appreciated the way the deft structure and nuanced, intimate writing combined in this compelling, original examination of the effects of war.

A vividly specific story of an Iraq War Marine whose daughter becomes a Marine in the same war. The play resonates with emotional devastation in the aftermath of combat. The snapshots of their years together beside a flowing river are haunting and prickly and human. That she grows into an honorable soldier who can defend herself and others makes the story's end all the more heartbreaking. A beautiful and wrenching play.

This play is heartbreaking, honest, awkward and very intriguing on the page. I love that this is a play about war, but not in the way you'd expect. It's such an intimate, painful little play that actors could really dig into.