The Diary of a Teenage Girl by Marielle Heller

"The great achievement of The Diary of a Teenage Girl, adapted from Phoebe Gloeckner's graphic novel, is to take the girl's point of view seriously. Neither sentimental nor judgmental, Diary presents Minnie Goetze as a smart, creative, passionate young woman, and the production's only agenda is to be true to her experience."

"The Diary of a Teenage Girl, the compelling 2002 novel in words and comics by Phoebe Gloeckner, stings with truth... Now 'Diary' -- an account of Minnie's largely unsupervised adolescence in the Bay Area, drifting through its druggy, erotic morass in the '70s and agonizing through a sexual entanglement with her mother's boyfriend -- has been reverently adapted by Marielle Heller... In streamlining the story, Ms. Heller centers on the toxic bond between Minnie and Monroe, and the production best succeeds as a lacerating indictment of predatory male self-indulgence..."

"The Diary of a Teenage Girl: The Play is riveting theater, and as skillful a comics adaptation as I've come across. If you're in New York and have any interest in...an unusual and innovative theatrical experience, or simply in a movingly no-bullshit exploration of the lives of young people and the older people who shape them, I'm almost willing to buy you the tickets myself."

"Heller and her collaborators provide an affecting portrait of an artist as a very young woman. Can you dig it?"

"I think what may be controversial about this production is that it is not a morality tale and it is not a victim narrative. Minnie is almost always portrayed as having agency. She's not exploited by her 34 year old lover, she doesn't 'realize the errors of her ways' and magically reform into a good girl. What she does is survive."