←Recommendations of Any Second Now

04/26/2026 - One of the more imaginative original plays I've read in years! What begins as a waiting room comedy quickly dives into a piece about playwriting, storytelling, theatre, and the types of characters we've loved over the years. Theatre-makers will love this as it speaks to them and audience members will love it for its wit and how it peels back the curtain on the creative process. Witty, endearing, and the kind of piece that makes you think. Well done!

A sharply satirical and wonderfully packed short piece infused with the writer's trademark wit. With one of those endings that I should've seen coming but didn't, the best kind in my opinion.

As we playwrights beat our scripts into submission--draft and re-draft, edit and tighten, move scenes and move them back, and especially eliminate characters or re-think their roles--we never consider the psychological effect our actions have on the characters we create and, perhaps, cavalierly throw to the curb. Fortunately, the ever-empathetic Philip Middleton Williams has examined their feelings and has here given us a first-hand report of his findings. It's a delicious inside-the-craft script guaranteed to tickle your funnybone.

A clever premise executed brilliantly. These characters have been put through the wringer by those darn playwrights and yet they wait for the opportunity to be used again. The backstories are riotously funny and the last bit is a terrific kicker.

I often wonder what happens to characters after I've thought them up but they don't make it to the page. Thanks to Philip Middleton Williams' I need wonder no longer. "Any Second Now" is a delightful treat for audience, but especially for actors who get to play havoc with the writer's imagination.
It's also a good reminder to treat one's bullpen of characters with care, but I probably won't anyway.
Bonus points for the dig at Jean-Paul Sartre, one of my personal favorite dead white guys to lampoon.

Bravo, playwright!

Writer’s block is hell. This quick-witted ten-minute meta comedy really captured for me what it must be like on “the other side” of our imagination as playwrights—and how it must feel to be pushed to the side as a ”supporting character” and much more unsettlingly, how it feels to wonder if and when you, too, will become a cliche

It takes remarkable talent to tell a story that is not only compelling, but quick witted. This is a smart play, and like so many pieces by Philip Middleton Williams, he proves again why he is the king of this kind of work. This play, like so many of his others, prove that knowing the big stuff can be relevant and even brilliantly applied today if one only tries. I mean come on, you had me at Fred and Ethel! It’s a wonderful piece and I want more!

I have a deep appreciation for meta-comedies, and this one truly exceeded my expectations. What I loved most was how the audience was constantly in on the joke, and the humor kept flowing seamlessly. It cleverly comments on the ever-changing trends and tropes of the genres, while the characters, despite embodying clichés, possess a vibrant life of their own. It's a delightful construct that invites us to recognize and acknowledge these familiar archetypes we have encountered (and perhaps even written ourselves). As I read the play, I couldn't help but envision the staging! So fun! Bravo!

I really enjoyed this play by Philip, right up my street, I often wonder what my characters are up to when I'm not writing! I like the way the author has the characters work for different playwrights, from Neil Simon right back to Shakespeare, great stuff!

I never quite expected to run across a comedic, somewhat hopeful No Exit, yet here I am, smiling about this Philip Middleton Williams play and thinking through all my college discussions about absurdism and existentialism and comedy. I'm always a sucker for writing that wonders, "Okay, but what if what we writers are doing actually impacts semi-sentient beings?" This show scratched that itch the entire run of its length. I feel I'll come back to it when the itch returns. Great work.