The 2022 underground hit Dimes Square announced Matthew Gasda as the Chekhov of New York City's downtown scene, the theatrical chronicler of a self-chronicling generation, as well as a young dramatist of lasting power and impressive range. Self-produced, performed in loft apartments and other nontraditional spaces, Dimes enjoyed a month's long, sold-out run at a time when most larger, institutional theaters were still finding their footing post-pandemic. Matt's meteoric rise over the past two years has been greeted with profiles in The New York Times, reviews in New York magazine and Spike, publication in Air Mail, mentions in Vanity Fair, and a host of blogs and podcasts where he has become the subject of heated debate. Matthew's work has become synonymous with post-Covid literary culture, not merely in terms of coverage and the endlessly productive conversation around it but also in terms of creating a new social space populated by leading thinkers and writers. This collection contains the plays Dimes Square, Quartet, Berlin Story, and Minotaur.
Matthew Gasda grew up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He worked for years in relative obscurity, refining his craft-writing and directing plays as well as novels and poems-over the course of the tumultuous 2010's, a decade which saw profound and sometimes troubling transformations in the way we think, feel, and live. His plays include the acclaimed underground hit Dimes Square.
"The plays never feel self-indulgent or claustrophobic. Instead, they are intelligent, light-footed, and witty ... Essential to Gasda's work is its willingness to skate in the direction of thin ice."--First Things "Attending one of Matt Gasda's plays in the homemade theaters he finds across town, I feel like I'm part of his dark, funny visions of bohemia; and I feel very inspired to write more and be more ambitious, and I'm reminded of how stories can change your experience of life, how you can live your life as though it were a play, and create your own character, and write your own fortune."--Dean Kissick "Matt Gasda is such an incisive playwright, I hesitate to chuck more adjectives in his direction--what if they're the wrong ones? His work is funny and lovely and human in the best way. Perhaps we are, as Nate from Dimes Square says, 'living through the dumbest time in human history, ' but here are four retorts."--Sloane Crosley, author of Cult Classic and I Was Told There'd Be Cake "As a comedy of manners, [Dimes Square] is as good as it gets ... It's a generational snapshot--someone had to do it, and at least it's someone who knows how to write."--Spike "Decadent and delicious."--The Last Estate "Gasda has a deft, humorous touch and a rare talent for steering large numbers of characters."--Vulture "Life and art tangle stickily together in these plays. Gasda holds a powder-smudged mirror up to our self-obsessed age."--Matthieu Aikins, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of The Naked Don't Fear the Water
