Product Review

For the vast generation of actors in their teens and twenties, as well as for teachers, directors, and producers, Under Thirty is an unparalleled source of diverse and challenging roles, created by some of today’s finest writers. The twenty plays presented here in full or in part include insightful looks at the pressure-cooker caste system of American high schools as well as heartbreaking, edgy portrayals of twentysomethings adrift in the city. There are snappy romantic duets, large-cast ensembles, and everything in between, populated by richly dimensional, mold-breaking characters: misfit cheerleaders, nurturing drifters, rich petty thieves—even a rogue SAT tutor. The contributing playwrights span the range of contemporary talent, including award-winning dramatists such as Sam Shepard, Donald Margulies, Warren Leight, and Kenneth Lonergan, hilarious humorists such as David Ives and Douglas Carter Beane, and an impressive array of cutting-edge newer voices.