UPDATE: Picked has extended through May 22!

Ben Brantley, New York Times: It is refreshing to see an actor drawn with the subtlety and sympathy that Christopher Shinn brings to his thoughtful new work about a young man teetering on the cusp of stardom. Picked is also better than any play I’ve seen at finding the natural existential anxiety in the frustration and powerlessness of being a movie actor. Impeccably observed.

Scott Brown, New York Magazine: Picked is smart, sinuous work from a playwright who writes with unshowy depth and unforced menace on a challenging subject, the splintering of identity.

Jennifer Farrar, Associated Press: How an earnest young actor deals with huge disappointment is the premise behind Shinn’s thoughtful and humorous new play. Makes sly points about the ironies inherent in the profession of acting and the difficulties of creating a “true” experience in the totally artificial medium of film.

Matthew Murray, Talkin’ Broadway: A powerful character study about how easy it is to accidentally handicap ourselves on the threshold of our greatest triumphs. Picked illuminates humanity’s hunger for acceptance and perfection, and satiation on compromise, with artisan-level accuracy. Genuine and honest.

David Cote, Time Out: Sensitively weird. Shinn territory is a land of bruised souls sharing awkward silences, their subtext and inchoate impulses placed carefully between them. A dramatist who writes from an intensely interior zone.

Oscar E. Moore, Talk Entertainment: A heady, well-written new play. Actors be forewarned: it might send you directly into therapy or over the precipice.

Michael Stahl-David and Liz Stauber; photo by Carol Rosegg