ROAD KILLS

by sophie mcintosh

“Nina Goodheart’s guignol production does wonders in a space smaller than a passenger seat, and the tiny space ensures that Mia Sinclair Jenness’s stunning performance makes a lethal impact. Good Apples Collective & McIntosh are exciting voices in the body-horror / youth-disaffection space; if you want your theater with A24 vibes, this is your show.” 

— Helen Shaw, theater critic for The New Yorker

“As in last year’s surreal cunnicularii, the two collaborators [Goodheart and McIntosh] create a world of both great, heightened theatricality and poignant, earthy humanity…. A preternatural master of mood, Goodheart reassembles some of the cunnicularii team to create a similarly cinematic effect.” 

— Juan A. Ramirez, Theatrely

“Masterfully directed by Nina Goodheart.”

— Scotty Bennett, TheatreScene

“[L]ife is a highway; you’re either behind the wheel or splattered across the median line; sometimes both. Tight, perfectly paced direction by Nina Goodheart of the resourceful Good Apples Collective. [...] Great scene transitions with mini-audio-dramas introducing that day’s interstate carrion, and then reveals of the aftermath.” — David Cote, theater critic for Observer

— David Cote, theater critic for Observer

“Director Nina Goodheart's whimsical theatricality contributed greatly to the success of [last year’s cunnicularii], but as director of Road Kills, her excellent work is grounded in subtle naturalism…. [I]f talent, originality, and the ability to tell evocative stories count for anything, I'll expect this company to eventually become a major influence in this city's theatre scene.”

— Michael Dale, Talkin’ Broadway

“Nina Goodheart directs with a similar economy and intelligence, balancing the laugh-out-loud humor with the constant undercurrent of tension. It feels ‘hands off’ but it isn’t. Maybe that’s what’s so striking — it all feels ‘hands off,’ yet without any danger of spinning out of control…. This is a play about damage, but McIntosh has written with such precision and Goodheart has handled so skillfully, you feel the damage, but you do not feel damaged.”

— Sarah Downes, The Front Row Center

“Goodheart’s directorial hand is light but unmistakable. She threads the play’s humor and heartbreak with such precision that the tonal shifts never feel jarring, only inevitable.”

— Tony Marinelli, Theater Beyond Broadway

“Playwright Sophie McIntosh explores relationships between animals and humans — and humans with one another — in her powerful, beautifully staged new play…. Road Kills has an intensely realistic and relatable feel to it. It’s exquisitely directed by Nina Goodheart…. [D]espite being such a small space with primarily only two actors, there is always something new to see or hear.”

— Mark Rifkin, This Week in New York

“Director Nina Goodheart excels in juggling morality…. Nina Goodheart and Sophie McIntosh prove to be a match made in heaven, with unflinching writing and gorgeous direction that [bring] true honesty from actors in every show from their Good Apples Collective.”

— Jazzy Pedroza-Watson, Hi! Drama

“I suppose it is not surprising that a play called Road Kills — a play that opens with the corpse of a young fawn at center stage, ironically loomed over by a Deer Crossing road sign — wends its way through a series of dark and darker turns…. What is surprising, and pleasantly, is the high degrees of nuance, emotional complexity, and wry humor in both Sophie McIntosh’s script and Nina Goodheart’s remarkably buoyant direction.”

— Loren Noveck, Exeunt

“In art as in life, there is captivating drama to be mined when mismatched strangers are thrown together by circumstance. So it is in Sophie McIntosh’s Road Kills currently in an Off-Off-Broadway run after a well-received series of readings…. As staged by director Nina Goodheart … the meticulous attention to detail heightens the intimacy of the performance.”

— Cathy Hammer, The Unforgettable Line