ROAD KILLS
written by Sophie McIntosh
directed by Nina Goodheart
produced by Good Apples Collective & ryan duncan-ayala
Named one of A Dozen Off Broadway Shows to Energize Your August by Laura Collins-Hughes for The New York Times.
Owen is a roadkill collector. Jaki was busted for drunk driving. And for the next six Saturdays, they’re stuck with each other. As they traverse the highways of Wisconsin, they connect over their common ground as outsiders, challenge each other on issues of faith and family, and careen towards a collision that threatens to shatter them both.
Sophie McIntosh’s unflinching new play Road Kills forces us to confront the long-lasting repercussions of abuse — and urges us not to look away.
Road Kills was presented as an Equity Showcase at Paradise Factory, 64 East 4th Street, New York, NY in the summer of 2025.
PRODUCTION TEAM
Playwright & Producer: Sophie McIntosh
Director & Producer: Nina Goodheart
Producer: ryan duncan-ayala
Associate Producer: Sarah Jones
Stage Manager: Damayanti Wallace
Associate Director and Dramaturg: Mia Fowler
Fight + Intimacy Director: Willow Funkhouser
Assistant Stage Manager: Jenna Rowell
Scenic Designer: Junran “Charlotte” Shi
Lighting Designer: Paige Seber
Props Designer: Sean Frank
Costume Designer: Saawan Tiwari
Sound Designer: Max Van
Production Electrician: Max Stroeher
CAST
Jaki: Mia Sinclair Jenness*
Owen: D.B. Milliken*
Neil/Miles: Michael Lepore*
Understudy for Jaki: Anna Aubry
Understudy for Owen and Neil/Miles: Nicholas Louis Turturro
* denotes member of
Actors’ Equity.
You can access the digital program from our production HERE.
what happens to the stains you can’t get out?
“Road Kills by Sophie McIntosh at Paradise Factory is a fierce, nasty little beast… its claws are out. [...] McIntosh knows how to orchestrate her shocks to seem funny, so we're often laughing. But of course the real crash is coming…. Nina Goodheart's guignol production does wonders in a space smaller than a passenger seat…. Good Apples Collective & McIntosh are exciting voices in the body-horror/youth-disaffection space; if you want your theatre with A24 vibes, this is your show.”
— Helen Shaw, theater critic for The New Yorker
“With McIntosh’s signature deadpan incongruity, a frightening valentine to Midwest isolation unfolds: glittering, jagged, and written in blood…. This is a major piece of writing. It’s huge and risky and sad and powerful. It feels like reading a classic for the first time.”
— Gracie Gardner, Culturebot
“[T]he two collaborators [McIntosh and Goodheart] create a world of both great, heightened theatricality and poignant, earthy humanity. [...] Road Kills functions perfectly as the odd-couple situation it proposes, its characters learning from and about each other through furtive, often funny, interactions. [...] It wouldn’t be a McIntosh play if it didn’t also acutely explore women’s impossible circumstances. This thread is pulled towards the end of the 80-minute production, almost as a bonus tie-in to the rest of her growing (and consistently excellent) oeuvre. Until then, Road Kills doesn’t coast, so much as journey imperceptibly through thematic terrain that might seem to bend, but which the writer’s firm hand navigates straight through.”
— Juan A. Ramirez, Theatrely
“[I]t is impossible not to be invested as the show approaches an end… and fearlessly leads the audience into some knotty ethical and empathetic territory. Road Kills’ final image, especially if juxtaposed with one of Jaki's earlier outbursts (and the transitional blackouts), injects ambiguity into a moment of resolution, perfectly fitting for a production equally at home being funny, poignant, or uncomfortable.”
— John R. Ziegler and Leah Richards, Thinking Theatre NYC
“[An] exquisitely calibrated meditation on grief, survival, and the curious alchemy of connection…. McIntosh’s script reveals itself to be a work of quiet ingenuity—a carefully constructed framework that reflects the episodic, recursive nature of emotional excavation. [...] Goodheart’s directorial hand is light but unmistakable. She threads the play’s humor and heartbreak with such precision that the tonal shifts never feel jarring, only inevitable. [...] The metaphor would feel heavy-handed in less capable hands, but McIntosh’s writing is so restrained, so uncommonly respectful of the audience’s intelligence, that it lands with poignancy rather than didacticism.”
— Tony Marinelli, Theater Beyond Broadway
“Road Kills is a superbly written, multilayered play by Sophie McIntosh, masterfully directed by Nina Goodheart. […] It is a beautifully realized story worth experiencing. Sophie McIntosh’s storytelling is both compelling and thought-provoking. When coupled with Nina Goodheart’s direction, which brings out the best in the cast, it creates a first-rate theatrical experience. See this show. You will not be disappointed.”
— Scotty Bennett, TheatreScene
“If you’re looking for a less conventional odd couple-type play, I would look no further than Sophie McIntosh’s new play Road Kills (RECOMMENDED) at Paradise Factory in the East Village. [...] McIntosh’s play is structurally effective and makes for genuinely intriguing character studies.… Thankfully, Road Kills ends on a note of hope and grace…. As directed by Nina Goodheart, the production is tight and intelligently paced, giving the actors both a solid framework and the necessary leeway to fully cultivate their characters.”
— Interludes
“Being introduced to [McIntosh’s] work has been the best thing to come out of my post-pandemic decision to semi-retire from reviewing to focus on giving coverage to more affordably priced theatre created by members of underrepresented groups. She has a great talent…. Director Nina Goodheart's whimsical theatricality contributed greatly to the success of [last year’s cunnicularii], but as director of Road Kills, her excellent work is grounded in subtle naturalism. [...] [Road Kills is] a fluid blend of tragedy and humor, leading to an unexpectedly optimistic conclusion. [...] Goodheart and McIntosh are the co-leaders of the play's producing company, Good Apples Collective…. [I]f talent, originality, and the ability to tell evocative stories count for anything, I'll expect this company to eventually become a major influence in this city's theatre scene.”
— Michael Dale, Talkin’ Broadway
“Glad to finally catch up with playwright Sophie McIntosh after her buzzed-about cunnicularii last summer. [...] McIntosh milks her central metaphor with wit and a gimlet eye for detail: life is a highway; you’re either behind the wheel or splattered across the median line; sometimes both. Tight, perfectly paced direction by Nina Goodheart of the resourceful Good Apples Collective. [...] McIntosh is a zesty, savvy storyteller, drawn to locales and class distinctions beyond urban middle class.”
— David Cote
“I suppose it is not surprising that a play called Road Kills — a play that opens with the corpse of a young fawn at center stage, ironically loomed over by a Deer Crossing road sign — wends its way through a series of dark and darker turns…. What is surprising, and pleasantly, is the high degrees of nuance, emotional complexity, and wry humor in both Sophie McIntosh’s script and Nina Goodheart’s remarkably buoyant direction…. McIntosh and Goodheart have a firm grip on the play’s tricky tone, giving us permission to laugh in the darkness and recognize the genuine moments of emotional connection even if they’re about to be stripped away.”
— Loren Noveck, Exeunt
“In Road Kills, playwright Sophie McIntosh has devised that most elusive of creations — a truly original story. [...] Nothing in this play is easy and yet it flows with humor and quiet intensity. It’s an extraordinary work. Within minutes of the first scene I was all in. [...] Nina Goodheart directs with a similar economy and intelligence, balancing the laugh-out-loud humor with the undercurrent of tension. It feels ‘hands off’ but it isn’t. Maybe that’s what’s so striking – it all feels ‘hands off,’ yet without any danger of spinning out of control. This play covers some delicate territory – abuse, trauma and one hell of a plot twist, but none of it is gratuitous. [...] This is a play about damage, but McIntosh has written with such precision and Goodheart has handled so skillfully, you feel the damage, but you do not feel damaged. McIntosh, in one of her many impressive small moments, finds a redemption we can hold on to.”
— Sarah Downes, The Front Row Center
“Playwright Sophie McIntosh explores relationships between animals and humans — and humans with one another — in her powerful, beautifully staged new play…. Road Kills has an intensely realistic and relatable feel to it. It’s exquisitely directed by Nina Goodheart…. [A] powerful, provocative, and compelling statement on contemporary society.”
— Mark Rifkin, This Week in New York
“In art as in life, there is captivating drama to be mined when mismatched strangers are thrown together by circumstance. So it is in Sophie McIntosh’s Road Kills currently in an Off-Off-Broadway run after a well-received series of readings…. As staged by director Nina Goodheart … the meticulous attention to detail heightens the intimacy of the performance.”
— Cathy Hammer, The Unforgettable Line
