←Recommendations of Simon Says

It’s all fun and games until SIMON SAYS! What starts out as an interview for a documentary on the origin of children’s games and chants and how they became widely known (an interesting topic, for sure), becomes weirder, creepier, and downright frightening! Erin Moughon does a brilliant job of lulling us into a false sense of security as the two-person crew goes about setting up for the interview. A great script waiting to scare the daylights out of audiences everywhere.

I am already a huge Erin Moughon fan, and what a treat to discover such a compelling, new-to-me play! Like the content itself, this short begins with fun and games - creepy vibes and goofy overreactions - and escalates and escalates until it enters the realm of true horror! Best of all, you don't need any special effects (other than a trio of dedicated actors) to pull off the most terrifying, gut-clenching aspects of this script! When a play is both this compelling and this producible, it's certain to contribute to more genre theatre on our stages! Bravo!

Oh man. It was funny and then it got creepy and then it got scary - and it wasn't a very long play! What a masterclass. Erin Moughon knows how to tell a story that gets you.

A shocking play that manages to be truly, deeply scary in just 30 minutes. All of the horror here comes directly from Moughon's precise and intricately set-up dialogue, which drives the heart of this perfectly-constructed psychological horror and delivers a chilling end. A masterclass in horror that doesn't need flashy bells and whistles—it's all there in the writing.

Simon Says will never be the same after this riveting horror play! You won't want to miss a second!

What an eerily engaging play. Moughon takes a familiar children's game and unpacks the dangers that lurk within the power of a simple phrase. Luring us in with the comedy of a pleasantly idiosyncratic setup, we have no idea what awaits. Bone-chilling and deftly written, this genuine horror play deserves a stage.

SIMON SAYS is genuinely one of the most horrifying plays (no, not just short plays... PLAYS) I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing. An expert in pacing and suspense, Moughon has created a terrifying modern day fable that examines agency and consent in a deeply impactful, engaging fashion. Never has my whole body been so tense, and never have I enjoyed that feeling so much. This play must be produced - and lucky for you, Moughon has made it easy, with a simple set, three intricate characters, and a story that will send shivers down anyone's spine.

Whether Simon Says or nay (...), we should all applaud Moughon's terrifying short. This is a tour-de-force for three actors, and it descends into absolute horror with perfect pacing. Even the stage directions pull atmosphere work here, and I would be hard-pressed to imagine anyone not leaving a theatre chilled. Magnificent. Many claim horror doesn't work on stage. It's too much. Too expensive. Too hard.

We have a new example to point to that proves otherwise.

Great horror stories all require real-world anxieties and fears to fuel their make-believe boogeymen - here it's the myriad of ways the world contrives to take away our agency, our ability to consent - and Moughon is a great horror writer. She's also the rare horror writer who can make the form work in theater, and SIMON SAYS is a blistering little display of mastery.

SIMON SAYS rests on an original premise: just as “Ring Around The Rosy” couches a deadly warning about the Black Death in a children’s game, so does the play’s eponymous game—to increasingly disturbing, violent effect. Erin Moughon’s surefooted genre piece hits all the right notes, laugh out loud one moment and spine-chilling the next. Her sly references to conspiracy theories like The Illuminati in her original lore (and the restraint she shows by showing us just enough of it) reveal her to be a literate and practiced storyteller. And what gnarly fun for three actresses!