←Recommendations of The Last Spin Cycle

A whimsical, compelling experience that takes you on a grim a witty journey. DeFrates struck gold with this piece!

Dreams, and the pursuit of them, are the summation of human experience. In the face of fear, pain, loss, and even death, we manage to dream. This quirky and sad comedy gives us a lifetime in a short time. Moving and compelling, DeFrates conjures a sense of desperation tinged with hope. Brava.

Infinity in a nutshell. My second encounter with Hannah Lee DeFrates’s work and I love THE LAST SPIN CYCLE for the dark place it takes up in the imagination, the seemingly effortless wit of characters (terrific names! by the way) that will resonate in the minds of strangers, the coolly desperate minimalistic props, a frigging arc handled so gracefully you don’t see it coming, and singing at the laundry as I’d never would’ve thunk it. Three cheers! A kind of magician's trick that leaves you wanting more.

In this short dramatic play that has dark humor sprinkled throughout, playwright Hannah Lee DeFrates takes you on an incredible ride. A ride that unexpectedly resolved in the final few lines of the play only to reveal, love. This is a show that required to be read twice to truly soak in the genius behind Hannah’s incredible play. Highly recommend and hope to see this is selected at festivals throughout the world.

Any port in a storm (or in this case, any laundry room) as the characters in Hannah Lee DeFrates short, darkly comic horror play shows. Being trapped with a fellow plague doctor, Caraway is thrown in with Meadowlark seemingly to live out a prisoner's nightmare. But the two decide to escape their own way, through their imaginations. At least until the next load is done. There's wit, heartache and even a baby of sorts. Would love to see an audience reaction to this.

This surrealist piece has a sensitive core at the center, as the reader is drawn into the fantasy world that Meadowlark and Caraway have created. You know it's not going to end well, but for a second living in that world, you believe in the fantasy that they have created... and maybe you even believe that they believe in it too. A meaningful and affective short piece that would be a great fit for festivals and would be a joy to see staged in all its absurdist glory one day

The Last Spin Cycle is a sweet, slightly terrifying, and shockingly heartbreaking piece that needs to be read. Hannah Lee DeFrates forces you to look at your own life and consider what you need to get done before your time comes. Use this piece for personal reflection while also enjoying the marvelous work of theatre that it is. Brava!

The historical horror of the plague doctors juxtaposed with a laundry room provides a wickedly surreal setting for this dark but humorous play. I was especially struck with the interaction between the two characters. A fun little play for a shorts festival.