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     JONATHAN'S PLAYS and 

       what people are saying

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Please Leave the Light On 

            by Jonathan Libman

Bay Area Playwrights Festival Semi-Finalist - Staged Reading Upcoming 2024 

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"This is a beautiful script. Very very unusual  and mournful and heartfelt and authentic.

 I was amazed at some of the writing.    A really scary and moving and odd play.  Congratulations on this very special piece."

                                                                                                                              Jesse Eisenberg

                                                    Actor/Writer

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"Beautifully theatrical, amazing characters,  amazing  dialogue, bravo!  Love that that  story forces audiences to consider every  side of a horrible crime, and what it means  to be criminal.  By molding him into a fully  realized person, even someone who has  reasonable doubt of innocence, it’s possible  to show many sides of an issue. The grey  area is much more vast than most people  would feel comfortable admitting."

                                                                                                                                Markus Potter

                            Producing Artistic Director                                                 NewYorkRep.org

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Accidents Waiting to Happen 

              by Jonathan Libman

will be featured in an upcoming The Parsnip Ship podcast.  www.theparsnipship.org

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"This play has stayed with me long after my  last read.  It's very rare to find a play that is  as urgent and necessary as this is.  

 How it explores (with nuance)  issues of  race, gentrification, the complications of  human relations and sexual exploitation,  among other things.  There are moments  that shake me to my core.

 Ernesto's struggle to make ends meet to the  point where he gradually sinks lower into  the hands of a predator or savior? 

 The complicated relationship between him  and Kwanita trying to maintain their  dignity in their own neighborhood which is  being taken from them.  The adults who  apply the pressure are sympathetically  drawn and surprise.

 By the end our preconceptions are replaced  with an authentic complex understanding  of voices that go mostly unheard in the  American theater, or really even outside of  the  communities they live in.

 Given the resources and support

 it deserves, I’m certain this very strong play  will be a contender."

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                                      Neil Tyrone Pritchard

                                 Associate Artistic Director

                             Labyrinth Theater Company

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"I really admire your work. You've come a  long way on the play, and I think it's a real  testament to your ability to stay with a story  and keep going deeper into it. Perfect  combination of humor and pathos. I love the  way Ernesto's writing bookends the play.  That opening speech is particularly  wonderful.  You get the feeling that the  world is just closing in on Ernesto, he's  driven to do things no young person should  have to do."   

                                                                                                                                    Wayne Maugans                                                      Actor/Director                                          Voyage Theater Company

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