←Recommendations of Things Are Looking Up

As with so many of Vince Gatton's shorts, he draws you in with well written, fully formed characters and then drops something on you once you're fully invested and care about them. I love his writing. This short packs a punch and what it leaves unsaid and unseen makes everything else more powerful. Such great work.

I was so taken with the three nurses here portrayed as so human. With drives, ambitions, little flaws and faults. They seem like real people to us. And the work they do is fraught with potential heartbreak, never knowing who will or won't survive under their care. When a bit of luck enters the picture, you just aren't expecting a next page hammer blow that hits home in a frightening way. Life can turn on a dime, and Vince Gatton ably proves this. This play is hopeful and harrowing at the same time. So much done with so little. Bravo.

A lot of plays that pack an emotional punch hit you from the get go. What I respect about this piece is that is lets you sit with these characters in their day to day lives. Lets you get to know them and care about what monotonous thing they're doing. And then it pops you. It makes the emotional sting that much more powerful. Well done piece.

Lulled into a rhythmic normalcy of idle chat and becoming familiar with characters you relate to and grow fond of, Vince Gatton has set the stage for a subtle turn toward tragedy. But it is an all too commonplace tragedy that we sense around every corner in today’s world. Bravo Mr. Gatton for sneaking up on me with that baseball bat. And while I watched you slowly wind up, I could not make myself get out of the way.

I don't know that I ever got chills reading a play before. It's a 90-degree day in my office, but reading this play, in the moment of realization a chill hit me like a wave. Beautifully observed, wonderfully specific, gorgeously understated. Excellent!

I've always been fascinated by the outskirts of tragedy. Certainly, there's greater drama and trauma at the epicenter of a disaster. But what about the moments before? When we see the water recede from the beach signaling a tsunami...

Here, Gatton perfectly captures the calm before a maelstrom. Three nurses enjoy a break on a slow day, each making incremental yet significant advances toward their own happiness. Tragedy inevitably strikes but it strikes elsewhere. But the reason why we're bearing witness to these people soon becomes startlingly clear.

Delightful characters, effervescent dialogue, and exquisite detail make this a heartbreaker.

Gatton really knows how to pull you in and shows you how to love and feel like you're part of the world of his characters. I love the banter and storytelling in this piece, which seems polite and friendly until he masterfully surprises you with a broken expectation that pulls the rug out from beneath you. I could read his plays all weekend. Great work Vince!

Vince Gatton knows how to suck you in. He’s sneaky. Nothing on the nose. One minute you’re gliding along on the rails of well-crafted but innocuous dialogue, just some chatter between three distinctly different ER nurses, barely a hint of a problem, but then – WHAM. You’re hit between the eyes. Can’t wait for the next chapter in this story!

The title is misleading in this dark, semi-comedic-but-not-quite, short play. Gatton weaves these lives together like the knitting in the piece, and the characters are clear and well voiced. The moment captured in this piece means something drastically different for each of these people, and in this unassuming convenience store, all of their lives are about to change forever. That speaks to so many of us on many levels. Engrossing and ultimately heartbreaking, but really wonderful writing.

The beauty is in the mundane here, among the sometimes-stocked and sometimes-sparse shelves of the local 7-11, while nurses on break connect and commiserate over little and maybe not-so-little things. It's in the seeming throwaway details of passing conversation that most-telling bits are divulged, and this little slice of life is hammer punched by one of the best, most subtly rumbling mic drops of a reveal I have had the goosebumped pleasure to encounter. Not everyone can do understated horror like Gatton can, and Vince Gilligan would be envious.