←Recommendations of A Higher Power

Saw this little gem at the Valdez Conference and couldn't stop laughing and smiling. Brilliantly funny (as John's work always is) it manages to skewer religion while making the characters beautifully human and accessible.

A delightfully funny play which toys and dances with traditional scripture in a fun and affectionate manner. The linguistic and comedic inventiveness seems to know no bounds. A real treat.

I thoroughly enjoyed the reading of this laugh-out-loud comedy at the Valdez conference. The ridiculousness of the scenario, the super smart handling of the biblical references and puns, the fast and furious pace - all add up to comic gold. A HIGHER POWER has something for everyone, and then some. Highly recommended!

In the words of G. K. Chesterton, "the test of a good religion is whether you can joke about it." By that metric, John Busser may be the best advocate Christianity currently has. A HIGHER POWER is a delightful stoner romp which riffs on the New Testament with both super-specific Biblical jokes and the lowest of low comedy - and somewhere behind the hilarity, there's a genuine meditation on what exactly it takes to achieve a state of divine grace.

Having caught a live reading of A Higher Power, I can once again report that Busser has a gift for outrageous scenarios, razor-sharp dialogue, inspired puns, and storytelling that seems gloriously dumb right up until you realize how smart it is. Equal parts hilarious and blasphemous, it's the kind of play that will have audiences laughing hysterically while probably offending at least a few others. Now, if someone could please convince Busser to write a full-length play, I'd be grateful.

Saw this play read at the Valdez Theatre Conference and it is SO MUCH FUN. I don't remember the last time I laughed so hard in one sitting. As someone with a rough relationship to Christianity, this comedy was very healing to see. And the puns? They keep coming and coming and coming. You've never seen Christ (or Chris?) quite like this. Bravo to John Busser!

This short is a treasure. Jesus, Peter, and Paul are imprisoned together, Jesus makes pot brownies to calm their nerves, and the entire play is a delight. I love the mix of Biblical and modern language ("Would you calm thy country ass down?"), and any audience would be helpless not to laugh along at their sheer delight and silly jokes as they get gigglier and gigglier. This play is my favorite combination of very smart and very silly.

What a fun piece! Some lovely word play in a scene which pokes rather gentle fun at Jesus and his disciples. Given the way religion is being weaponised by right wing politicians to divide people along tribal lines and brutalise vulnerable groups, such humour feels like an antidote to poison. Love it!

Brethren and sistren, prepare thyselves to meet Jesus, Peter, and Paul as thou've never seen them before. The gospel according to Busser is an hilarious concoction wherein our scribe takes biblical blasphemy and scriptural satire to new heights--or depths according to thy point of view--and serves it up in a potful of puns and askew allusions. It is, verily, a giggle fest, so if thou hast an appetite for wicked fun, then thou shouldst surely read it.

Put Monty Python, Mel Brooks, and Cheech and Chong together in a drunk tank, add a little New Testament, and bake... And I do mean bake. This is John Busser showing us that nothing is sacred, and what a blessing it is. Sacrilegious? Hey, if Sunday school was more like this, I'd still be a Christian going to confession: "Christ, was I stoned last night..."