←Recommendations of THIS HAPPENED ONCE AT THE ROMANCE DEPOT OFF THE 1-87 IN WESTCHESTER

This play speaks to human connection, love and how we conflate the two so powerfully. One of my favorite plays, not just on this site, but that I've ever read. It's on my bucket list of plays I want to direct, and it should be on yours as well.

I have read every single one of Femia's plays, but somehow I think this one is my favorite. This play is absolutely outstanding in every single way. I would kill to see this beautiful and emotional and funny and sweet play about a sex shop staged. The set is just as much a convention of the play as its strong female characters.

First piece I've read by Femia, and I am immediately going to go through and download all of their work because WOW! Maybe this struck me so because I spent a six months behind the register at a sex shop in college, but this piece got to me. Beautifully done, want to direct it desperately!

Wow, this play is outstanding. The dialogue flows in such a smooth way. I love the unconventional setting, but the way the setting becomes a character in the play itself is so satisfying.

The day 99 scene is chilling and beautiful. It is a mastery of the art in the way it weaves sound and action together for a beautiful climax.

Would kill to see this show done/read in my area!

I love the unusual setting of this play, the realistic dialogue and deep humanity of its characters, all of whom are seeking and all of whom surprise us in different ways. A lovely and moving play about loneliness from a master playwright.

Adore this play. I read it first, and then caught the PWC's online reading. The collective yearning all of these characters experience in their own way, in their own journeys for intimacy, makes me speechless with how well it is done. Gina's voice is superb; the dialogue + stage directions are breathtaking. Please read this play to experience it yourself, and then produce it.

I love this play so much. I first discovered This Happened Once in last month's PWC streamed reading of it. The characters can be laugh out loud funny. The scenes are tender. The whole piece is both an appropriately complicated look at heavy topics (including sex, trauma, and abuse), and a collection of perfectly subtle glimpses into people's lives and the seemingly simple things--Disney movies, baseball games, porn, show tunes, one another--they fill them with. I could read this play again and again.

A devastating piece that manages to also feel like a comforting hug. A reminder that everyone who thinks they're lonely really isn't, until they are. Lovely, believable characters with some of the best writing and formatting I've had the pleasure of reading.

I had the pleasure of watching a stream of the PWC reading of this script. I truly admire the ease of the language. I love how this story was broken up over the course of many, many days. The stories about fire were both amazing. I felt the loneliness of each and every character. Lots of laudable moments.

Oh, I just loved this play. It's a piece that drips with collective yearning: for lost potential, for what might be, for human contact from someone fresh and new. it's a love story where no love is professed, a chronicle of life where the world changes with the seasons, a character study where the Romance Depot becomes a character in itself. The relationship between Kevin and Beth is heartbreaking and life-affirming. Femia gives us no easy outs and never sugar-coats anything, with magical stage directions and stunning use of silence and mood. What a beauty of a piece.