Uncertain of what awaits the bare stage, the audience take their seats before the lights fade. The moment arrives and the door opens and actor James Smith steps into the space: fearless, wearing angel wings and carrying a duffel bag, bringing with him New York City in 2001. Within seconds, we meet Matt, auditioning for what he believes is a gender-swapped Romeo & Juliet (hence the wings), and the story unfolds with a mix of humour, hope, and quiet tension.

How Not to Make It in America, written by local playwright Emily Steel and directed by Corey McMahon, is simultaneously intimate and ambitious. They’ve crafted a play filled with 28 distinct characters, each thoughtfully and skilfully handled by Smith alone. Matt is a young Australian actor chasing the classic dream: to “make it” on the stage. He’s followed his girlfriend, Michelle, to New York for her internship, determined to launch a career of his own while navigating a foreign city and an uncertain future.

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Steel’s play opts for a structure that feels like memory: fragments that layer and echo, slowly building a map of Matt’s world. Timelines run alongside and over each other, circling back to one defining moment: the attack on the Twin Towers. The gravity of the world outside gradually presses inward as Matt and Michelle’s personal choices take on new meaning. When Matt phones home just to say he’s safe, it’s a simple act loaded with everything left unspoken.

The production’s technical elements deepen its emotional texture. The lighting not only marks place and time but also mirrors shifts in tone. The sound design subtly roots us in New York with fragments sitting just beneath the action until, suddenly, silence falls—and its weight is unmistakable.

With only 2 performances remaining, How Not to Make It in America is a sharp, funny, and quietly affecting piece of theatre that captures both the chaos and tenderness of chasing dreams far from home.