Critics Weigh in on Eliya Smith's Dad Don't Read This Off-Broadway Debut

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Read reviews from Vulture and Exeunt.

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Dad Don't Read This , a new play by Eliya Smith is now playing Off-Broadway at St. Luke's Theatre through May 29. Directed by Chloe Claudel , the show features performances by Drama Desk winner Amalia Yoo , Renée- Nicole Powell , Sophie Rossman , and Kayta Thomas .

In suburban Central Ohio, four girls meet weekly for a sleepover. They talk and sleep and play The Sims, a computer game that simulates real life, on a laptop. They gossip, snack, and attempt to get drunk. They strive to fulfill their needs, struggle to understand the relationship between doing and being seen, and begin to suspect they don't have a whole lot of agency. Wait, nevermind; that's The Sims. Dad Don't Read This is about the people who know you before you know anything. See what the critics are saying...

Loren Noveck, Exeunt: Dad Don’t Read This is messy and raw and doesn’t really go anywhere, but the fierce energy of its voice and its sharply observed characters–and particularly those moments where the play’s casually realist surface cracks open to reveal a weirder sense of narrative time or a stunning, mystifying image–will keep it in my mind for a long time.

Jackson McHenry, Vulture: Dad Don’t Read This resolves, in many ways, but there’s an unfilled spot left at its center. Amid the warmth and humor of her portrait of teenagehood, Smith is touching on a cold and bracing thing. Sometimes, people, like pixels, can just flicker out.

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_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Review-Roundup-DAD-DONT-READ-THIS-At-St-Lukes-Theatre-20260515)._