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

Oh my goodness. This tiny play about lives that converge in a sex shop is actually about huge, huge things, like loneliness, settling, and how much we need other people. It is gorgeous in its specificity and the dialogue, as with all Gina Femia plays, sparkles.

This gorgeous play has the beautiful inelegance of watching nuanced, imperfect humans in need of connection and love fumble towards those things in propulsively written scenes. The evolving relationship between Kevin and Beth kept me hooked...the information that's slowly leaked out about the baggage they're both coming to the play with is compelling...this truly profound look at big universal questions about love and intimacy that aches with specificity should be produced far and wide!

How is this play not produced everywhere? It's so funny and heartwrenching. Gina is a genius.

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.