Press

"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 2015

"...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 2015

"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 2014

"There is humor in such sadness with which we must make friends of in order to endure this world." Teddy Nicholas, Theatre is Easy 2015

"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 2014

Stess offers "studied and generous small simulacra of the world we inhabit."
Ben Gassman, The Brooklyn Rail 2014

"Stess spins distinct universes with her language which folds in and out like a drunk kaleidoscope." Morgan Green, Culturebot 2015