←Recommendations of One-Shot

Give this PLAY a shot! I got a chance to read this play in a diverse intergenerational reading group, and ALL of us took slightly different things from it, but we were agreed that the play is a beautiful reminder that everyone approaches life with their own unique histories, so that even when we go through the same experience, we won't see it the same way. A brilliant exploration of perspective, and how it can splinter even the most tender of relationships. Bravo, Rosendorf. Really, REALLY great work here.

For a 90s kid, this is a beautiful piece of nostalgia - and for everyone else, it feels like a period epic unfolding in a video store. This coming-out, coming-of-age teen love story tackles young love, loyalty, friendship, and LGBTQ issues with heart, depth, and humor. Florida Rep showcased this play in its 2023 PlayLab Festival.

So many ideas and questions run through this beautifully intimate piece, but the one that kept reverberating to present day--this play takes place in 1999--is what happens when the safe places we've created are no longer safe? This play is a crushing and finely wrought illustration of the difficulties of making room, especially when for those who feel they deserve some room themselves.

This play about Big Topics is told on a compellingly human scale. Kudos to Rosendorf for creating a story that resonates far beyond the walls (and windows) of this video store in then-America and into now-America, which is so different and not different at all with regard to love, race, entitlement, legality, faith, fear, and what it means to grow up here.

A heartbreakingly beautiful play about how the world and frustrations rip relationships apart. How people can want the same thing, but cannot be on the same page.

A painful, yet beautiful indictment on white fragility centered around Queer characters. Rosendorf provides with no easy answers and really highlights our country's system dilemma with white supremacy. I was challenged and uncomfortable in all the right ways.

It is the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's pleasure to recommend Andrew Rosendorf and their play One-Shot as a finalist for our 2020 National Playwrights Conference. This particular work emerged from a highly competitive, anonymous, and multi-tiered selection process to become one of 63 finalists out of more than 1,500 submissions. This enthralling piece galvanized the hearts and theatrical imaginations of our reading teams and is fully championed by our offices. We are honored to put our enthusiastic support behind this writer and their ongoing contributions to the American Theater.

I was lucky enough to be in the room as Andrew was working on this beautiful play, and am so happy to get to read a complete draft! At the time, we had a great discussion of the idea of “cinematic” as a negative note in theatre, and ONE-SHOT is a great example of how a play can be both cinematic AND highly theatrical. It’s a powerfully queer love story rooted in a specific time and place that’s also resonant in the here and now. Read this play!

Playwrights Foundation congratulates ONE-SHOT as a Finalist for BAPF 2020. This play rose to the top 35 out of 735 plays submitted, and was discussed at length by our Bay Area Literary Council for consideration in our season. We loved how this play uses the language of theater to illuminate challenging perspectives and compelling intersectional questions. This play ultimately moved & inspired us and spoke to the core mission of PF. We hope that once we’re allowed to return to our theaters again, it will be considered for production to reach new audiences.

What a gorgeous, vividly-rendered intersectional queer story. All of these characters are written with a great deal of tenderness and care for them, even as they make troublesome decisions! The central questions explored here are valuable and eternally relevant--who gets to tell their stories and see themselves in the media, what makes a society "safe" or not, how do different facets of our identities intersect with our privilege--and communicated through a hyper-specific and nuanced time and place. The betrayals and resolutions flow sensibly--not to say they are predictable, but that they carry the weight of inevitable tragedy. Amazing!