READ AN EXCERPT -and also- BUY THE PLAY
“Roadkill Confidential, a new work by Sheila Callaghan, is intriguing to watch… it’s a sick sitcom, it’s a thriller, it’s a parody, it’s a commentary on the art world, it’s a — this one’s borrowed from the script’s title page — ‘noirish meditation on brutality’.” -New York Times
“This multi-media spectacle… ransacks familiar pop-cultural genre conventions to deliver a smart and stylish cautionary tale of an artist who gets caught up in the savagery of her own art.” -Variety
“Sheila Callaghan, like many playwrights, operates best when she’s angry…dry her out with a nice, warming rage, and her work crackles… Callaghan parodies brilliantly… ” -TimeOut New York
“Sheila Callaghan’s latest is a fascinating look at our perpetual state of paranoia… It’s hard to say if the fascinating whole is searingly intelligent parody or something altogether more serious; the uncertainty is admirable.” -TimeOut Chicago
“Sheila Callaghan’s imagination has turned noir… [in] Roadkill Confidential, her new drama, [she] pays playful homage to the shadowy old crime-film genre even as it flirts with apocalypse.” -The Village Voice
“Sheila Callaghan’s play… abounds with cleverness… ” -The New Yorker
“Sheila Callaghan must never have writer’s block… Roadkill Confidential, her newest work, [is]… provocative, sure, but smart, too… ” -New York Magazine
“If you think theater should be scary, exciting, and insightful, truck downtown to … Sheila Callaghan’s hip and freaky Roadkill Confidential… ” -Backstage
“… laugh-inspiring and thought-provoking… Callaghan’s play is filled with some terrific (and surreal) flights of fancy… [Callaghan] is equally cunning in the ways in which she satirizes aspects of our world today… It’s all incredibly thoughtful… consistently engaging.” -Theatermania.com
“Sheila Callaghan gets the current zeitgeist in New York right… Callaghan has a vision that is clear, individual… [she] is a smart writer unafraid of blood… In Roadkill Confidential, Sheila Callaghan catches our era’s lack of apology; as unappealing as that might seem to some.” -Stage Voices
“…cruelly blunt and emotionally frayed… [with] Onion-caliber sarcasm… and the ironic deployment of stock characters and situations [and] seemingly earnest critiques couched within…Roadkill Confidential ends with triumphant, gripping ambivalence. It’s a chase into the digitally distorted psyche of a society at once overly sensitive and totally desensitized.” -The L Magazine
“Roadkill Confidential is a dark comedy about brutal characters… Callaghan’s crisp prose talk[s] about what it really wants to talk about… ” -New York Broadway World
“Roadkill Confidential tackles, with style, humor, and high theatricality, mediated violence and the numbness it produces… ” -NYtheatre.com
“Art and terrorism make a gruesome twosome in this contemporary noir drama of intrigue and roadkill… [Callaghan’s] conceit is apt: art as an agent of political change is more possibly relevant than ever in these dark times. And (spoiler alert) the reveal is worth the price of admission.” -Flavorpill.com
“No playwright feels more current than Sheila Callaghan… The ultra-cool provocateur plays a cat-and-mouse game… [with] heady themes [and] cool tone… Roadkill Confidentialisn’t just arid intellectualism. Callaghan has a sick sense of wit … and a sly fondness for big action movie plots… the hip theatergoer shouldn’t miss this cool work.” -New York Metro Mix
“Roadkill Confidential by Sheila Callaghan, is a play about art and guilt… in the final analysis, Ms. Callaghan’s portrayal of [an] essentially human paradox is well done, and the ending… is tragic and satisfying.” -Culturalcapitol.com
“…crystalline moments of great writing… Roadkill Confidential captures the sudden, unexpected danger of dire situations… [we] relish in moments of goofy truth that are utterly delicious.” -Culturebot
“… raw, unusual, and exciting. Roadkill Confidential fits that mold, lightly borrowing from the narrative conventions of a noir flick to examine the intersections of art and violence… The show is funny, original, and intriguing… Callaghan uses a lot of illusion-shattering tricks in her script… Roadkill Confidential is a work of art… ” -That Sounds Cool Blog
“Trevor is the stereotypical tortured and misunderstood artist, unable to satisfyingly connect with her lover or anyone else. In real life such people tend to be tiresome, but Trevor… is written and played so well (by Sheila Callaghan and Rebecca Henderson respectively) that she’s unceasingly interesting to watch… ” -Show Showdown Blog
“…an intriguing new play… [a] tense comedy-drama about the blurred line between media and message, art and life.” -Blogcritics.org
“Each moment in Roadkill Confidential is exquisitely crafted, stunning in both its heady intellectual content and its vivid, vibrant theatrical construction… it’s all crystal clear and compelling, with a dry macabre sense of humor… if you like intellectually compelling and skillfully crafted theatre you should totally see it… ” -Theatreiseasy.com
“Sheila Callaghan’s Roadkill Confidential is a charged collision of two, three, or maybe infinitely more, worlds… The real treat is the jungle gym of language on which [the characters] play. It is at once pipe-strong and improvisational, propulsive and obtuse, irreverent and heroic… Callaghan perfectly supports the layers of this spicy delight with balanced notes that provide a full bodied, mysterious, and intoxicating potion.” -deanpoyner.com
“Callaghan has a wonderfully smart-aleck sensibility.” -Chicago Tribune
“On the surface, Roadkill Confidential sounds like a thriller ripped straight from a CSI or X-Files episode or a big-budget Hollywood spy blockbuster. In many ways, it is, with its espionage procedures and tense escalations. But it is much more… A dark levity balances the tense proceedings, allowing for laughs followed by pin-drop intensity.” -Chicago Journal
“Marvelous… striking… beautiful…. [Callaghan’s] dialogue and situations are colorful, amusing and spicy… a triumph.” -Windy City Times
“This is a very challenging play, in part because it forces us to confront some of the more unsavory aspects of the world… weird. Really, really weird.” -Gapers Block
“Rising playwright Sheila Callaghan’s smart, noirish script, with its poetic language and creepy characters… is amusing and appropriately weird.” -Backstage West
“At what point does creative freedom collide with moral accountability? Sheila Callaghan’s bleakly sardonic Roadkill Confidential at Son of Semele Theater poses the question in uniquely unsettling terms.” -LA Times
“Roadkill Confidential is a wonderfully weird combination of political art commentary and intrigue that sounds like an unlikely fusion, but works in spite of its oddness.” —The Buzz from Sydney
“[Roadkill Confidential] is intriguing, laden with ironic intelligence and deliciously glazed in an arch-comic perspective.” —Kevin Jackson’s Theatre Diary
“[Roadkill Confidential] is an abstract and often surreal piece of writing that celebrates the dramatic art form by prioritizing the stage’s unique abilities of relating to its audience.” –Sydney Theatre Reviews