Dad Don’t Read This

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Eliya Smith’s Dad Don’t Read This take us into the claustrophobic, hermetically sealed world of teenage girls. We attend four sleepovers at the home of 16-year-old Mal for her high school classmates Noelle, Sophie and Lida. As directed by Chloe Claudel (co-artistic director of The Goat Exchange which co-produced the play), this plotless play has the aura of cinema verité as we listen to the girls gossip, argue, reveal secrets and fantasize about what life has in store for them. The target audience is probably young women in their twenties for whom the play will be a reminder of recent memories.

Set in suburban central Ohio in 2014 (where the author grew up), Mal first reads to us from either her diary or a playscript of what we are about to see telling her father not to read any further, standing on one side of the stage. In any case, she doesn’t seem to have any agency to keep her parents from reading her private papers, which is probably true of other three friends. When she enters her bedroom (set and props by Forest Entsminger), she often goes directly to her computer. She seems to have a lot of secrets from her girlfriends and may be telling a lot of lies. In any case she doesn’t give them a sincere answer to why she was out of school for a week, nor do we find out why she comes home one day dressed in multiple layers.

The girls gossip about classmates, tell catty stories about each other, listen to music, dance around the room and get drunk on a drink they call “liquorstuffs” Mal has concocted made up of small amounts of vodka, gin, tequila, wine, and then a different wine, and also a little beer from her parents’ liquor cabinet. (Of course, one of the girls gets sick on it immediately, while it has no effect on another one. They also play The Sims video game on Mal’s computer.

The Sims is a simulation game that allows players to create characters, houses and a life for them which reached its peak in the 2010’s. It is a kind of virtual doll house which also has its own language. The girls can create various scenarios that play out in real time or longer. More than one person can have his or her Sims characters on the same computer. From what Mal tells us she has a cruel or mean streak in her which might be an overreaction to her parents fighting which we can hear offstage during much of the play.

Aside from Amalia Yoo’s Mal who often addresses the audience directly as though this is her show (or dramatization), the other girls are a big blur making it difficult to keep what they say separate, though they each have specific characteristics. One theme they all share is that all the girls appear to be having trouble with the men in their lives nor do they yet know how to handle their situations. Sophie Rossman’s Sophie appears to be seeing a therapist and may have had a traumatic incident earlier. She does tell of a troubling sexual harassment episode outside of the bathroom at a restaurant she went to with her parents – and the man in question turns out to work with her father. Kayta Thomas’ Lida is most timid refusing to go down to Mal’s kitchen in case she runs into her father. Renée-Nicole Powell’s Noelle appears to be the coolest but she also seems to be having trouble with her father who always seems to appear inappropriately offering donuts. She is also the only one who stands up to Mal and tells her a few home truths.

Under Claudel’s direction, the four actresses are totally believable as teenage girls circa 2014, with Yoo’s Mal giving the most layered and mysterious performance. (Yoo had her big break last season as the conflicted Raelynn in Kimberly Belflower’s John Proctor is the Villain.) Although the play is completely authentic and persuasive, as it is plotless we do not know where it is going. Nothing much happens nor do the girls grow up in the course of the play. They do eventually each reveal their fears about growing up and what the future holds for them. Each of them seems to be suffering from an unspoken trauma they only hint at. If you don’t identify with one of the four individual girls, you might be bored by the lack of action on stage though it all is very convincing.

The production team all seem to be on the same page. Best are the many costumes from Olivia Vaughn Hern both for the four separate sleepovers, as well as Mal’s extensive wardrobe. Entsminger’s bedroom set is very real while not depicting anything that doesn’t get used. The lighting by Abigail Sage and Finn Bamber cleverly has the room surrounded by darkness which suggests the evening sleepovers. A remarkable sequence in which Sophie tap dances (choreography by Lena Engelstein) violently to the song “California Dreamin’” is brilliantly lit up with stars covering the entire back wall.

Dad Don’t Read This by Eliya Smith (author of Grief Camp) is a remarkable account of the private lives of teenage girls as of ten years ago before everyone had smart phones. She seems to have a particular talent for depicting troubled teens who are not entirely sure of where they are going or what to do about it. As a plotless play it may most appeal to young women who have just gone through this dark time in their lives while other people may feel nothing much has happened.

Dad Don’t Read This (return engagement: June 17 – July 11, 2026)

Try for Baby Productions & The Goat Exchange

Greenwich House, 27 Barrow Street, in Greenwich Village, Manhattan

For tickets, visit http://www.daddontreadthis.com

Running time: 95 minutes without an intermission