←Recommendations of Southies

An excellent ghost story with loads of depth. Beautiful language sets us on the journey to a delightfully pleasant landing. Great short play.

I loved this short play. An eerie ghost story with a twist ending that I definitely didn't see coming.

Who doesn't love a good ghost story? And this is a ghost story with a delicious little twist! The dialogue is playful while still drawing the reader in and setting up that spooky suspense that is necessary in every good dark tale. An excellent read and I would love to see this performed on stage. Bravo Jeffrey!

Wonderfully crafted twisted ghost story! I won't give it away, but it thrills with relevance and fun! I appreciated the way Sean and Austin have dialogue that matches throughout which gives some clues in retrospect about the history of this moment. Super ending!

Sometimes recounting the backstory IS the event of the play. SOUTHIES is a great example of how a playwright can conspire with their characters by stealthily weaponizing their history. There's an entertaining tale within a tale, a jaunty setup with a fun payoff where everybody wins, at least a little, for now. Fun roles for actors, easy to stage, a joy for performers and audiences alike!

A nifty little ghost story, with more than just scares on its mind. Keyes takes the dizzying social advances that have been made over the past decades and uses them to anchor a marvelously constructed supernatural tale about the importance of acknowledging the past while letting go of its baggage. A lovely piece of work.

What a beautiful, gentle piece of art. Sean and Austin have this rare and sensitive love for each other and for their guest, the dialogue and storytelling is excellent and provides a lot of opportunity for fun staging and blocking. You realize the twist about two lines before it's revealed, perfectly shocking you at just the right moment. Just a beautiful piece in all regards!

I got the chills. The creepiness settles in, the surprises and reveals keep you on the edge. This play deserves many productions during the Halloween season.

I love storytelling as a dramatic action -- see Conor MacPherson's The Weir -- and its virtues are on beautiful display here. A good ghost story is its own reward, of course, but a smart dramatist understands that that's not enough -- there has to be a reason the teller is relating the story, and something they're trying to achieve by doing so. Jeffrey James Keyes is in fact a smart dramatist, so this seemingly casual stem-winding exercise proves to be something far more purposeful than it first appears. A little spooky, a lot humane, Southies is a cozy-creepy pleasure.

Those looking for some good, spooky fun that's high on creepiness but low on frights would do well to consider Southies by Jeffrey James Keyes. Sean and Austin's ghost story is grounded enough to feel plausible, yet still deliver a few chills. And the ending... well, the less said, the better!