From the title CASSIE STRICKLAND IS NOT UNDER THE BED to the white-knuckle inducing stage direction in the last pages, this is a riveting, extremely well-crafted short horror play. It’s inspiring how Vince Gatton uses each of our childhood imaginations (the archetypal fear for what’s under the bed) to get us inside Clay’s fear and feel it along with him - while also wanting to side with skeptic Howie. There are many great lines that make this frightening story come to life. I love Howie's line about people not knowing how to act around Clay.

Someone used Clay’s gun to do a bad thing. Now he needs the gun to protect himself from the forces that want him to pay (both human and decidedly not). CASSIE STRICKLAND… is part of Gatton’s broader storyline about gun violence and its impacts; the depth of the world-building, character backstory, and blanks left to be filled in makes this parable about guilt and responsibility stand on its own, and stand out from similar ten-minute plays.

The problem with recommending this play, and saying that it's got one of the all-time great jump scares, is that it's selling the piece short. CASSIE STRICKLAND is also a masterful depiction of American masculinity, gun culture, small-town dynamics, and survivor guilt, and to say one more word about Gatton's accomplishment is to rob it of its sinister power. (But yeah, it's got one of the all-time great jump scares.)