Press

"... Ariel Stess’s 'Kara & Emma & Barbara & Miranda,' directed by Meghan Finn, is a superb lo-fi slow burn: a sequence of seemingly desultory storytelling episodes, concealing a spectacularly precise structure." Helen Shaw, The New Yorker

"Never sentimental or contrived, Stess’s play makes a strong case for female-allyship across class and generational divides. Maybe it is just the saturation in cynicism of our age, but such a feat in 2024 feels downright radical." Frank Boudreaux, Culturebot

"... the play’s unique power lies in Stess’s seamless ability to make action and movement out of thought and introspection, and to insist that there are no small, mundane moments that do not carry the fullness of life." Jonathan Bock, The Tank

"Stess’s plays are strange, plotless reveries, unmoored from reality yet striking at our deepest agonies with painful insight." Joey Sims, Theatrely

"There was something so ruthless in its revelation of the thorn-sharp twists and mysteries of quotidian middle-class family life ... I still have lines from that play stuck in my head." Julia Jarcho, The Brooklyn Rail

"In the quiet, we can enjoy Stess’s tiny throwaway jokes as though they were knee-slappers of the highest order." Helen Shaw, Time Out NY

"... her style is so vivid that the next time Ms. Stess puts together a party — or a meeting or whatever it is — I’ll want to be on the guest list." Alexis Soloski, New York Times

"Ariel Stess's violently funny high-school comedy, I'm Pretty Fucked Up, is wrong on a lot of levels—all delicious, many disturbing." Helen Shaw, Time Out NY

"There is humor in such sadness with which we must make friends of in order to endure this world." Teddy Nicholas, Theatre is Easy

"I’m Pretty Fucked Up mixes the banal and the horrific, though in the universe of the play, sometimes you can’t tell which is which." Hallie Sekoff, New York Theatre Review

Stess offers "studied and generous small simulacra of the world we inhabit."
Ben Gassman, The Brooklyn Rail

"Stess spins distinct universes with her language which folds in and out like a drunk kaleidoscope." Morgan Green, Culturebot